Toronto Trip July 25th 2024. “Strength of a Dynasty”

It’s always been a desire of mine to visit all of the Chinatown’s in the world with my camera. I feel a deep connection with the roots of our chinese culture. China is a big country. I’m starting to understand even through we are not from the same province, there’s a lot of similarities through our ethnicity. The dialect doesn’t need to be the same, as long we value the rituals and respect for each other. I’m traveling with my camera to explore and document the things that interest me. The life we are living in now is not the same as our parents and ancestors. We live in a modern society as the newer generations might not be interested to carry on the traditions.

My parents reminisce about their close friends living in Canada and California all the time. Cities like San Francisco and Toronto are most popular of the conversations during Yum Cha (dim-sum.) They share stories with me about their era of moving away from home and starting a new journey. Many Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong province of China also moved to Hong Kong at the time for a chance of living a better life and a brighter future. After living in HK for some time and earning enough money to travel over seas people went on with their life into different parts of the world. From my understanding this is the reason and purpose of the growing popularity of chinese people all around the world. Adapting to different languages. Some like to explore new grounds and some prefer to be close to their own people for comfort. Now a days the older chinese community stay connected through we-chat as the younger generations prefer social media platforms like Facebook and instagram. It’s a big movement for chinese families (including mine) to return home to China every few years and show their gratitude of where they came from. Since covid a lot of things has changed.

As a proud native New Yorker of Manhattan’s original Chinatown, I’m determine to continue my street photography journey of documenting and highlighting other Chinatown’s through my eyes. This set of photographs was captured with my Leica MP and MA range finder camera along with Kodak Tri-X 400 35mm film. It was a real pleasure to taste the food of Toronto’s Chinatown and surrounding neighborhoods. It was real easy to explore the city by train and streets cars. I still have currency on my PRESTO card so I’ll be back! Shout out to my friend Simon for showing me around town and introducing me to the Chinatown Fire Department. Until next time, travel safely.

Gee Moon Tom