China town

I always loved walking through China Town. There is always such a wide variety of things to see there, even today.
I remember when my son would go on school trips, he'd bring me home a cork carving
inside glass. The work is so delicate. Most of the work the Chinese people did and do is delicate.
Like the little glass jars they paint from the inside.
I still treasure the cork carvings because my son chose them himself and bought them for me.

Here they show China Town in Victoria , BC and tell the story of the hard ships and the contribution
the Chinese people brought to British Columbia. They came to mine for gold and to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1800's.

 I learned something interesting about the China Town in Victoria, BC. One of the streets named
Fan Tan Alley, was 0.9 of a meter (35 inches) wide at its narrowest. It was full of opium dens and gambling.
at the time. I found this interesting they would do this here, considering China suffered because of these kind of things going on in China. Opium was introduced to China by Arab traders in 400-1200 CE to treat melancholia.

In 1483 Opium was quite popular and desired like marijuana is today in Canada. People wanted it to strengthen sperm, have more vigor, and control over ejaculation, which made one more manly. Opium was equal to the price of gold and at first was used by the rich, which then trickled down to peasant use.
It was also mixed with regular tobacco and herbs.

 Today the Victoria China Town it is full of stores and still interesting to walk through.
I got a you tube video of it found below.



Visiting the China Town in Vancouver, we saw other things.
It is close to Hastings street which is full of drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless people, which they tried to clean up for the Olympics.
We would see people going into the shops which sell $3.00 Chinese cooking wine.
It is made of alcohol water and salt. Quite yucky if you drink it from the bottle. 
However because of the alcohol , the cheap price and desperation, homeless addicted people buy it when they can't afford the real things they need. 
It was not uncommon to see people urinating in their pants and falling in stupor between the heavy street traffic.
One has to think why or even how man falls into such a condition and no one is there to help him in our country.
Even if you wanted to help him, he has human rights to refuse .

This is where laws become confusing. 

 
xoxoxo