A New Landmark in Chinatown

Eight lions ready to open the museum

Today was a momentous occasion -- the opening of the first national Chinese-Canadian museum in Vancouver's Chinatown. 

Some 300 guests assembled on East Pender Street where the museum is, across from the Chinese Cultural Centre. The street was blocked off for the event, with police cars and officers making sure the riff raff were kept out.

Eby speaking at the opening ceremony

Numerous dignitaries were there, from federal, provincial and municipal, all having played some role in helping launch the museum, along with wealthy donors, and who's who of Chinatown.

For the politicians who spoke, it was an opportunity to recount their political role in getting the museum off the ground, with much gratitude to former BC premier John Horgan who supported it with lots of funding to purchase the building, renovate and keep it going.

Mayor Ken Sim swaggered on stage and challenged people in the audience not to be moved by the inaugural exhibit, which marks the 100th anniversary of the 1923 Exclusion Act, a dark period in Canadian history when the Chinese were singled out for excessive documentation.

The show features hundreds of CIs or Chinese Immigration certificates that have black and white photographs of people, men, women and children who not only came from China but also born in Canada. In total just under 60,000 Chinese were registered with the Canadian government.

Mel Yip lived at Wing Sang building

The building the museum is housed in is also full of meaning. It is the Wing Sang building, the oldest in Chinatown. It was owned by Yip Sang, a young man from southern China who first tried to make his fortune in California, and then went up north to British Columbia and eventually settled in Vancouver's Chinatown.

Yip was considered the unofficial mayor of the neighbourhood and was so successful that he had three wives and 23 children. They all lived together in the back of the Wing Sang building and one of Yip's grandsons, Mel Yip remembers being there for the first 15 years of his life.

He talks fondly of never not having playmates around, rollerskating down Columbia Street and going to the movies with his numerous cousins.

Yip Sang died in 1927 just as the Great Depression was coming. While the rest of the family continued to live there, they vacated the building in the early 2000s due to disrepair.

Condo marketer supremo Bob Rennie bought the Wing Sang building in 2004 and many feared he would tear it down, but he poured money into it to fix it up structurally and to make it almost museum quality to showcase his massive art collection. Upstairs he kept one room intact -- the small schoolroom where the Yip children were educated by tutors hired from Hong Kong.

Catherine Clement gives media a tour of the show

He then sold the building to the museum for less than what he paid to renovate it and even donated money too, which is why Mayor Sim joked Rennie made the worst business decision when he sold the building. Har har...

Hopefully the new museum will not only be a new landmark in Chinatown, but also be a place to exchange ideas and discuss what it means to be Chinese-Canadian today, not just in the past.

Chinese Canadian Museum

51 East Pender Street

Vancouver, BC

(604) 262 0990