A Living Chinatown, the Best

Contrary to her assertive stance in one of the prints that make up Chinatown, The Best (2021), Brenda Joy Lem is among the most humble and soft-speaking people I have ever met. As a member of the Long Time No See Collective and as project leader for Chinatown, The Best (2021), Brenda told me she’d like to put all the prints up before the Lunar New Year. The collective has wheat pasted some of the prints at the Sanderson Library, an important gathering and sharing place for families in the neighbourhood. With fourteen portraits carefully aligned, the library's plain glass wall is now animated with community elders beaming with smiles. Through trial and error, the collective was able to make the paste by mixing wheat flour and water, the same pasting method that Chinatown residents use to post flyers communicating community information, such as the time and location of vaccination clinics during the pandemic.

Chinatown, The Best is the second project by the Long Time No See Collective, following their grassroots project Long Time No See (2021). The collective is made up of a group of local artists and educators, and most importantly, community members of the Spadina Chinatown in Toronto. The public art installation Chinatown, The Best exhibits a series of large format portrait prints featuring elders from the Chinatown community, created as part of an ongoing project. Each image portrays an elder standing confidently against a black-and-white street view in Chinatown. This colour contrast between the individual and the background asserts the collective’s belief that it is the people who make Chinatown “The Best.” In other words, the portraits resist the abstraction of Chinatown as a mere simulacrum of nostalgia and highlight the community’s vibrancy and its members’ presence. Along the print frame, “Chinatown, The Best” is written in English and Chinese. At the bottom of the portrait, the viewer can read a short story about the featured community member.

Chinatown, The Best embodies Long Time No See Collective’s idea of a living Chinatown. People often share nostalgic feelings about Chinatown. It reminds them of childhood memories of grocery shopping with parents, family dinner during holiday festivals, lion dance for the Lunar New Year celebration. For Brenda, however, it is the members of the community, especially the senior residents, that make Chinatown a special place. And her voice only becomes emphatic when she asserts: “Many people take for granted that Chinatown will always be there, but they are unaware of the challenges the community has been facing, including the ongoing gentrification, increasing vacancy rate due to the pandemic, and rising racism towards Asian Canadians. Chinatown needs our attention and care.”

According to the 2016 census, more than half of Toronto’s population was born outside of Canada. And Chinatown is one of the first landing places for many new immigrants, including myself, to immerse ourselves in the diverse cultures in the city. Community art projects like Long Time No See and Chinatown, The Best emphasize the human part of the community and serve as a kind reminder of the personal connections we share. It takes love and empathy to find our path back to each other, especially during turbulent times like today.