The Chinatown in Victoria (British Columbia) #yyj

I have visited Victoria (British Columbia) dozens of times, first when I was dating The-Ex-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named and then afterwards visiting friends, and most recently, when I spoke at WordCamp Victoria 2010 a few weekends ago. Whenever I visit Victoria, is such a short trip that I rarely have the time to walk around. This time, though, I at least made some effort to go and see a little bit. One of the things that caught my attention was the Chinatown.

From what I understood, the Chinatown in downtown Victoria is the oldest in Canada and second only worldwide to San Francisco (Wikipedia entry). While I have read that gold (the metal contained in minerals) was what brought the first Chinese people to Victoria in 1858, it seems a bit strange that there is not a very visible Chinese population in Victoria. From what I could see, the population was actually rather primarily Caucasian.

It was nice to see Chinatown, though. My photos don’t do it justice as they are iPhone-photos, but I did capture some of the fun elements of the neighbourhood.