ancient cities

of downtown cores is indicative of the growing
social mobility of the ethnic Chinese population. In
Toronto, large Chinese communities in the suburbs
of Markham and Richmond Hill have paved the
way for “new” Chinatowns. These are centered on
large shopping malls that provide culturally specific
goods and services and serve a largely Asian audience.
The goods and services are not only Chinese
in nature, source, or manufacture, but also include
Japanese, Korean, and Thai, among others.
Sites of Difference
The movement of Chinese communities to the outskirts
of cities indicates the changing nature of
Chinatowns in general. Their internal demographics
also are changing: Chinatowns are increasingly
populated by other East and Southeast Asian
immigrants as many of the older ethnic Chinese
have moved away to wealthier sections of the city.
Chinatowns are sites of difference. Ethnic enclaves
represent difference in the nature of race, ethnicity,
nationality, and social and migrant status. The
development of Chinatown is markedly different
from that of other ethnic enclaves given the nature
of the communities’ initial migration and settlement.
Particular to the Chinese is the male-dominated
society of the early migrant force, caused by the
nature of their work: railway building and mining.
The great imbalance in sex ratio in the cities of
particularly Canada and the United States resulted
in a greatly differing social structure.
The marked difference between the suburban
and downtown Chinatowns is in their representation
of socioeconomic difference. As downtown
Chinatowns are associated with perceptions of
poverty, marginalization, and the earlier ethnic
community, suburban Chinatowns are disassociated
from this image and usually represent communities
that have achieved not only a higher
economic status but also a certain level of residency
and citizenship. Related to this, downtown
Chinatowns are further typified as the receiving
locales for new immigrants. In many North
American cities now, the new immigrants to
Chinatown are not only Chinese, but encompass
other East and Southeast Asian nationalities in
growing proportion.
As racial and ethnic sites of difference within the
city, Chinatowns are often delineated by a markedly
different demographic in comparison with the
Chinatowns
133
rest of their urban settings. However, the idea that
only Chinese people live in Chinatown is a contrived
one. Cities are intrinsically places of intense
diversity, and even enclaves like Chinatowns can
be no different. The movement of Chinese communities
to the outskirts of cities indicates the
changing nature of Chinatowns. Internal demographics
are changing; Chinatowns are increasingly
populated by other East and Southeast Asian
immigrants as many of the older ethnic Chinese
have moved away to wealthier sections of the city.
Common Imagery
The image of Chinatown is commonly likened to
a “combat zone,” “red-light district,” or African
American “ghetto”—districts of crime and social
problems. Another common perception is the
image of an exotic foreign enclave. Chinatowns
are often imagined as places of vice, owing to the
concentration of gambling dens and opium parlors
in the early days. The rundown, ghetto imagery of
the Chinese neighborhoods is also related to the
low levels of hygiene and high incidences of illness.
This was, in many cases, due to the development
of the enclaves on undesirable land, usually on
low-lying, flood-prone, marshy sections of the city.
Further, the close conditions that many of the
Chinese lived in contributed to the transmission of
many sicknesses. These imaginations are reinforced
by fictitious re-creations in the media, for
example, in the film noir Chinatown with its psychological
mystery plot, despite the fact the film is
about public corruption in Los Angeles, and not
about Chinatown at all.
These popular imaginations are often overlooked
in occurrences of Chinatowns outside of
the West—in major cities like Bangkok in Thailand
and Nagasaki in Japan, for example; as well as in
the reality that such Chinatowns are often simply
places of businesses dominated by the Chinese.
Further examples include Vancouver’s Chinatown,
managed by a Business Improvement Association,
and the Singapore Tourism Board, which oversees
the development of Chinatown with the Chinatown
Business Association. The contrast between the
oft-imagined seedy underworld and the actuality
of business- and tourism-oriented Chinatowns is
due largely to the lingering effects of the sensationalized
journalistic reporting that burgeoned in the
late nineteenth century.