Video Vancouver: Chinatown Nightlife

Submitted by Victor Ngo.

After Sunset: Nightlife in Vancouver’s Chinatown

Vancouver’s Chinatown has a rich history of a vibrant nightlife. During the 1960s and ’70s, it was characterized by exuberant and colourful neon signs, restaurants, cinemas, and nightclubs such as the Marco Polo Restaurant. As a result, Chinatown formed an ethnically diverse and unique part of the city’s social scene. In recent years, the Chinatown community has worked towards the goal of nurturing new residential and commercial growth in the historic neighbourhood.

What role can promoting options for nightlife, particularly for youth, play in supporting neighbourhood revitalization and maintaining a complete community? After Sunset: Nightlife in Vancouver’s Chinatown explores how new businesses and initiatives including the Chinatown Night Market, Fortune Sound Club, and Bao Bei are contributing to a modern take on nightlife in Chinatown. How do these recent developments contribute to neighbourhood culture, heritage preservation, economic development, and life in a multicultural Vancouver?

After Sunset: Nightlife in Vancouver’s Chinatown was made for the course “Remembering the City’s History: Vancouver and Hong Kong in Comparative Context” taught by Dr. Henry Yu at the Department of History at The University of British Columbia as part of the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC).

For the film, a diverse set of stakeholders and experts from Vancouver and Hong Kong were interviewed including business owners, urban planners, local residents, and youth. Despite differences in backgrounds and visions for the neighbourhood, the film was successful in identifying and crafting a shared and unified vision of nightlife for Chinatown’s future.