This city has been receiving enormous immigration from across the pond for more than a century, and these days Wong, Chan, and Lee are among the most common names here (some have waggishly dubbed the city "Hongcouver"). Vancouver's bustling main Chinatown (which touts itself as "North America's cleanest", lol), revolving around downtown's Pender Street (above), dates back to the Shanghai Alley and Canton Alley of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Besides the usual pan-Asian restaurants, herbal shops, and other traditional emporia, there are a number of landmarks and attractions well worth noting, such as the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver, Sam Kee Building (the world's narrowest!), and the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden (which hosts a multi-day "temple fair" to mark the new year).
The biggest of the Big Apple's nine Chinatowns, in lower Manhattan along Canal Street and side streets south of it (though it's also starting to encroach upon Little Italy, north of Canal), is the largest Chinese enclave outside Asia, and one of the oldest. It's a mix of shops (both traditional and tourist-orientated); bakeries; sidewalk stands hawking cheap designer knockoffs; and a plethora of restaurants large and small (on my last trip back, I was again blown away by the exquisite dim sum at the gargantuan Jing Fong). You can also visit the extremely well-done, multi-media Museum of Chinese in America, and rub shoulders with the locals lighting incense and chanting Buddhist prayers at temples like Mahayana (133 Canal St.) and the venerable, much smaller Eastern States Temple (64 Mott St.).
Read more in my post 6 of the World's Choicest Chinatowns.
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