Judith Lam Maxwell's Insider Tour of Chinatown is a Must!

Advocate, socialite and epicure Judy Lam Maxwell is your Vancouver Chinatown guide par excellence.

We toured the storied area end-to-end, from the world-class ‘Thousand Happiness Gate’ to the imperilled mural of Lao Tzu on the Lee Tong building --all with a rousing ‘hello!’ to locals on every corner.

Judy even sorted out our cocktail at the end --an Elderflower 75 or Hanoi Mule at Sai Woo, say.

Ganbei!

Judy's lifelong contacts provided insider access to several century-old "Tong" (brotherhood association) buildings. As mah-jong tiles click-clacked in the background, we stepped out on a traditional Mainland China-style recessed balcony overlooking bustling and trendy Pender Street.

Next we were privileged to visit spectacular ancestral rooms festooned floor-to-ceiling with banners, portraits and sprawling black-and-white group shots celebrating elders and extensive clan networks.

Still visible in the ceilings at the Lim/Lam/Lum Tong building are headers marking tiny rooms that sheltered early-Canadian Chinese workers dispatched after completion of the railroads. Broke or broken, forbidden other work, forbidden the vote, and forbidden by ‘race’ to set foot west of Abbott, some men languished and died in these rooms.

The tour ended on a high note at the iconic Modernize Tailors, where spritely and utterly charming Mr. Bill Wong, 93-years-young, still sews custom suits on a machine a bit younger than himself.