Transcript
[0:02] OLIVIA CHAN: My name’s Olivia Chan. We own the first authentic Chinese tea store in Vancouver, named Treasure Green Tea Company. Our business started in 1981. My father started it. It used to be called Super Fine Tea on East Georgia, here.
So you know, casually sitting down one day and having dinner, my dad say,”You know what, I’m gonna close the business, and it’s time for me to retire.” And I go, “What?” And at the time, I thought, “Eh, 20 something years of business. It’s a pity to just close it.” And so I whispered in his ears, “Do you mind if I try it?” And he was very delighted. He said, “Yes, I will train you.”
[00:43] SCREEN TEXT:
Suzhou Alley Women’s Mural
digital stories
Serving the Community
Food as a Medium of Cultural Conservation
[00:52]: SCREEN TEXT:
Olivia Chan
Owner
Treasure Green Tea
[00:52] OLIVIA CHAN: I took over the business in 2002. Of course, I went in every day and they trained me how to blend and different little techniques. And also, of course, a lot of the history. The whole story of how he bring in the first shipment, how difficult it is to bring in something from scratch– nobody else was doing it. And then you know, he made it reality.
Everything was based on telefax. So, communication back and forth, handwriting and telefax over. Oh my goodness, my dad showed me the binder. It was this thick before our first shipment actually arrived.
[01:32]: He told me after I took over the business that miao4 or miu6 in Cantonese, it means girl, and then young. It’s a combination of two characters. How he came about that name is when he was brainstorming what to name the company, he was looking at me and my sister. We were both young girls at the time and he said, “Hey, would be great to, one day, one of these young girls is going to take over the business.”
Every company or family, we have a ritual of understanding what our missions are. For my father, he wanted new immigrants to find their comfort food, one of the staples: tea. Secondly, he also wanted to educate people– guidance, and to bring in the best we can, and hopefully broaden the Chinese tradition to the western side of the globe.
[02:37] SCREEN TEXT:
Pearl Lam
Co-Founder
Dicky’s Dumps & District Local
[02:39] PEARL LAM: My name is Pearl and I’m one half of Dicky’s Dumps, which is a handmade frozen dumpling business based here in Vancouver, BC.
Originally, Dicky’s Dumps was inspired by two things: my partner Dixon, his love of cooking and catering for his friends and colleagues and loved ones. For me, it’s more– I mean, we all love food– but also a love of creating events and experiences, primarily driven by a social media presence that I run with a friend of mine, called District Local. So it started as an event sharing platform, and it’s basically started as an online presence just to share, like on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, cool events like grassroots community things happening.
[03:19]: When I decided to host some community events in real life, I was also looking to really reconnect with my Chinese culture and heritage. Mostly from just walking through Chinatown probably like around 2015 and 2016, I started really feeling the impact of things changing, gentrification, the loss of that culture that I grew up with in Chinatown when I was a child. And I connected the two things together, meaning I wanted to host an event, I wanted to connect to my Chinese heritage.
I basically created events around Chinese New Year. So we’ve gathered 30 or so local artists to create art on red envelopes, and then invited my partner Dixon to run a dumpling bar. From the response we got from friends and community members, just saying, “Wow, like dumplings are so good. You should really start selling these. I want to eat these all the time. Where can I buy them?” And that’s really the birth of Dicky’s Dumps.
[04:21]: Growing up as part of the Chinese diaspora in a time where like, we are very much a minority, I spent most of my years struggling to just assimilate and hide the Chinese part of me. Even my own parents encouraged that, because they wanted us to just integrate easily, because we were new immigrants. They didn’t want us to fall behind.
Maybe it’s part pride, part anger and frustration of, “wait a minute.” I spent half my life, like my formative years, trying to bury that side of me because it was embarrassing. The easiest way to tie it back is to Chinatown, because again, that’s where a lot of the history grows from and it is a physical community. Yes, the product is dumplings. But the real story is our culture.
[05:19] SCREEN TEXT:
Created by:
Daniel Chen
Co-Produced by:
Catrina Longmuir
Yun-Jou Chang
Featuring:
Olivia Chan
Pearl Lam
[05:25] SCREEN TEXT:
Special Thanks
Elisa Yon
Helen Lee
Imogene Lim
Jackie Ing
Janet Wang
Jessica Quan
June Chow
Kelsey Lee
Laurie Landry
Lily Lee
Mengya Zhao
Sarah Ling
Stella Zheng
Winnie Cheung
[05:31] SCREEN TEXT:
Community Partners
Lim Sai Hor Kow Mock Benevolent Association
Chinatown Transformation Team
Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group
UBC Quan Lee Excellence Fund for Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies
United Aunties Arts Association
Vancouver Heritage Foundation
[05:38] SCREEN TEXT:
Additional Footage:
Ky Kim
Captions and Subtitles:
Daniel Chen
Location:
Vancouver Chinatown Treasure Green Tea Co.
Translation:
Yun-Jou Chang
Produced by:
Cinevolution Media Arts Society
Made possible by:
Canada Council for the Arts
BC Arts Council
[05:44] SCREEN TEXT:
This video was created on the traditional, unceded, and occupied territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
We respect, honour, and give thanks to our hosts.