thank you

The second owner of the building spared every expense and converted the large flat on the upper floor into two “four-and-a-halfs”. Four a half? The ugly little shoeboxes are a claustrophobic eyesore, but the rent is cheap and we have a quiet neighbour beside us.

The present owner inherited the building when his mother passed — his brother wisely wanted nothing to do with the decrepit old building. He is basically a slumlord, refusing to maintain the building.

It has the typical iron winding staircase which I was lucky enough to fall down once, ripping my foot open at the bottom. I’d have been a goner if it had been my squash.:)

I’ve never been to Brossard, but from what I hear it’s where the HK Chinese migrants settled in the 1980s and 90s. There’s also a large South Asian community there.

Oh, and other unexpected ethnic enclave: Bengalis in St. Henri and Point St. Charles. There are sari shops on Charlevoix Street now!

Montreal lost a lot of its pre-1997 HK Chinese immigrants — they either moved to Toronto or Vancouver or moved back to Hong Kong — but the other segments of the Chinese population are growing. Typically, Montreal has bled Cantonese-speakers to the ROC, but the mainland Chinese seem to be staying. They’re also likelier to learn French than immigrants from “Greater China” (HK, Taiwan and SE Asia).

As for Koreans, this is a big surprise: I think the community has doubled or tripled in size since 2001, when the census recorded only a couple of thousand of Koreans in the city. Since then, new Korean churches, restos and supermarkets have opened and there are two locally-published Korean newspapers. Although there are various Korean depanneur owners scattered around the city, the community overwhelmingly seems to be concentrated in Westmount and NDG, especially western NDG where I always hear lots of Korean spoken.

Zvi, that family on Bernard is actually Cantonese, from Hong Kong. The lady moved here 30-something years ago and she has 14 kids! She used to talk to Laine whenever she passed by — apparently, she’s very bitter about everything. I’d be bitter too if I had 14 kids.

I have a Vietnamese friend who has spent her entire life near the corner of Waverly and Bernard, so she’s a great source for all sorts of Asian neighbourhood gossip. Did you know that Maiko Sushi, which is Vietnamese-owned (my friend works there), was firebombed last winter by members of the Vietnamese mafia? This was right around when Harji’s was bombed, apparently by Tamil thugs, and also right around the time when Refcon on Park Avenue exploded.

There certainly is some Chinese immigration to Montreal, but not nearly in numbers that are found elsewhere. Nor do they seem to be gaining much prominence, although they PQ did field a Chinese candidate this year! It seems to be rather technical people who come to Montreal. I have had two colleagues from China, both from Shanghai – they came here originally to complete their PhD studies in transportation modelling at the UdeM. Ironically, The one who spoke better french and was relatively well integrated here (he was the only chinese-quebecker on a quebec-china trade delegation some years back – lots of pictures of him and Lucien Bouchard) moved to California. He didn’t want his kids being educated in french only! As far as I know, my other colleague has no intentions of moving on. Obviously these are not representative of the larger chinese community. I’ve met a few other people who were quite disappointed with Montreal (and North America in general) and were considering going back to China.

In fact, there is becoming something of a reverse trend of second-generation chinese-americans returning to China to pursue greater economic opportunities! Though they speak fluent english and have engineering degrees and MBA’s from prestigious universities, they are finding that connections are still important in modern china.

I read that the Montreal Chinese immigrant population consists of a lot of business immigrants who were educated in French. I find that fascinating. In your observations, is the Asian community in Montreal growing in numbers and prominence – or do you get the sense that Montreal is a stopping ground for many Asians prior to settling in Toronto, Vancouver or even the US? What about Hong Kong presence in Montreal?

Oh, and what about Koreans? I know of a colleague here in Korea whose relatives live in NDG. They run a dep near McGill metro. From what I remember of my old hood, a Korean family owned the dep at St-Viateur and Jeanne Mance (northwest corner). I also happened to read a random article in the Montreal Mirror, I believe, about a Korean woman who owned another dep somewhere in the Plateau. I get the impression that Koreans have a monopoly of sorts on deps. Any thoughts on that?

CDN and Park Extension are both dominated by apartment blocks rather than plexes and the landlord-tenant dynamic is completely different: both of these neighbourhoods, which are majority immigrant, have big problems with slumlords who try to screw over new immigrants who either don’t speak English or French or don’t know their rights.

By contrast, I wouldn’t be surprised if Verdun, a traditional plex neighbourhood that since the late 1990s has been receiving more and more immigrants from China, has more of a layer-cake effect going on.