this page: Market Village, the former Cullen County Market,
Markham Ontario.
opposite: Pacific Mall, also in Markham, and Pacific Mall expansion plans.
shopping culture transit suburbanism image
typology little hong kongs by joanne lam
Hong Kong, Sundays. We wake up. We get dressed. We take public transit to a Chinese restaurant and have dim sum with my grandmother. Afterwards, we shop in the area, meandering through the streets.Then we end up at the bustling market to pick up fresh meat and vegetables for dinner. Markham, Sundays. We wake up. We get dressed.We drive to a Chinese mall, choose a restaurant and have dim sum with my grandmother when she visits. Afterwards, we wander around the mall. Before long, we end up at the supermarket that serves as a mall anchor and get groceries for the week.
The food may be just as good, the restaurant just as crowded, but pretend as we might, life in Hong Kong cannot be replicated by simply inserting it into a mall in our newly adopted country. My parents and I immigrated from Hong Kong, one of the densest cities in the world. We were part of the decade-long mass migration that left the tiny 80 square kilometre island in South China Sea to place roots in a new country before Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain. Canada, Australia and Singapore, being politically stable, economically viable and having an open- door immigration policy, were our top three choices. In the summer of 1988, we contributed to the annual 60,000 immigrants. We chose Canada. In Toronto, our new life thrived in a series of suburbs: Scarborough, Markham and Richmond Hill. Because we have always lived in small boxes in the sky, we are naturally attracted to the big houses and wide lots. Outside of our cookie cutter houses, the suburb consists of strip malls of various sizes. Since our arrival, I have watched scores of strip malls gradually become dotted with Chinese restaurants, Chinese grocery stores and Chinese bakeries, a lot of which were decorated with Imperial Palace canopies made of precast concrete. Despite the fact that the wide setback, the parking lot in front and the tinted precast bear minimal resemblance to the street-oriented development back home, the sheer amount of Chinese goods and services garnered Markham the unofficial nickname of ‘Little Hong Kong’.
In the early nineties, the strip mall fell by the wayside when Market Village emerged. On the border of Markham and Scarborough, Cullen Country Barn, a collection of shops housed in a series of cutesy brick buildings was transformed. Market Village aptly describes the outside, but is completely unrelated to the Hong Kong shops inside. It was a strange hybrid. Stores were internalised but the clusters of shops were not connected. Nevertheless, it was immediately popular from the first day. By the late nineties, a sizable area of Market Village’s parking lot was developed to be Pacific Mall. This self-acclaimed largest indoor Asian mall completely internalised the stores. For our family, it used to be a day out to Cullen Country Barn to get a taste of the Canadian countryside. Overnight, it became part of our weekend itinerary. Within the Little Hong Kong world, malls have quickly risen to landmark status. Although street grids still reign in the suburbs, they only serve the purpose of giving directions. The mall is the centre of the action because it serves as a family equaliser. It may not offer the best but makes up for it in variety, keeping each member of the family content. So, on a typical weekend we drive to one of the malls, negotiate the sea of parking and follow the corridors for dim sum, shopping and groceries. Our disconnection to spontaneous Hong Kong street life is complete. The irony is that the developer feels compelled to name the corridors in Pacific Mall after Hong Kong streets. /
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