Victoria Chinatown Museum to remain permanently

The museum, which opened as a temporary extension of Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian Museum in 2021, will remain in Fan Tan Alley after it was announced that the board of directors of the Victoria Chinatown Museum Society (VCMS) will take over operations. With its new ownership, the museum has been renamed as Victoria Chinatown Museum.

VCMS officially took control on Tues., completing the objective the society has had since its inception in 2020.

“Our goal has always been to take it over,” said Grace Wong Sneddon, VCMS chair. “It was just lining things up to make sure we had our charitable status and enough support among the community to operate.”

Wong Sneddon told Capital Daily that she and the rest of VCMS believe that the oldest Chinatown in Canada—and the oldest remaining Chinatown structures in North America—deserves its own space to share Chinese Canadian history.

“We felt that not only the stories, but the buildings, the spaces, the courtyards, the alleys, all hold vibrant history,” Wong Sneddon said, explaining that Chinese immigrants would first arrive in Victoria when relocating to Canada, often staying around modern-day Chinatown where the immigration building was located.

“The history is in the walls, on the streets, and in the cracks in the buildings. I mean, how can we not use this space as a living museum to share the history and our evolving culture and history?”

With its new permanent status, the museum is expected to expand—both physically and through its programming. Wong Sneddon said there are plans to extend the walls, with the possibility of taking over the neighbouring office space, which has a kitchen—ideal for potential cooking classes that VCMS hopes to offer. VCMS has also begun initiatives that invest in the health of the community today and in the future, offering webinar programs on breaking down mental health stigmas within the Asian community.

Wong Sneddon said that the museum is one aspect of preserving Chinese and other Asian cultural representation along Fisgard. With the recent loss of long-standing businesses in Chinatown, including Quanley’s Market and A&T Grocery, she says it’s important to protect this representation and hopes that building owners encourage future operators to keep this in mind.

She pointed to her fellow board member Robert Fung, who owns the building where Ugly Duckling operates. When looking for a tenant, he told prospective operators that he didn’t care if they were Chinese, but wanted them to showcase Asian culture, care about it, and infuse it into the character of the business, a request that the restaurant has embraced.

“​​To me, that's that standard that we hope that other landlords hold their new tenants to,” Wong Sneddon said.

There’s also the hope the museum can help draw more people to the area. Wong Sneddon says there’s a clear interest in those looking to either learn about or connect with Asian culture. The VCMS’s Awakening Chinatown festival, for example, brought thousands of people to the neighbourhood, with businesses reporting a major spike in sales.

Wong Sneddon says she hopes people will take in the stories from the museum, but also that they will share their own stories.

“Repeat visitors come back and look sometimes at a particular photo, because it evokes memory,” Wong Sneddon said. “I love that because when we share, it's a gift to each other. How can we not be better as a community, as a world, [through] sharing that?”