Here, I found a home
究竟在这里找到家
Leeds' Chinese community's battle with changing times
利丝华人社区和时代改变的战斗
Leeds' landscape has changed vastly over the past 20 years, as the city is keen on increasing developments and giving much-needed facelifts to dilapidated buildings. Chinese businesses in the city have come and gone, but the Chinese community will not be given a new Chinatown to represent their presence in Leeds despite being deeply rooted in its society since before the 1960s.
Remnants of the past can still be found as you walk down Leeds’ Templar Street. Oriental roof designs and fading signs with Chinese characters are still frozen in time. An old dining restaurant once famous for wedding dinners and karaoke now seems unwelcoming and shut from the outside world by its cold steel shutters.
Further down the road, the Lyon Works building stands tall with some student artworks which brighten up the place. Panning down to the foot of the brick structure are red-framed shopfronts with a dilapidated but still readable signage reading “Chinatown Shopping Arcade”.
Occasionally, photographers curious about the area’s mysterious past and decaying beauty can be seen shooting away at the peeling red paints and dusty terracotta roofs. After five seconds of fame, the shops return to their abandoned and ignored state again.
“I remember my parents bringing me to Chinatown back when I was young,” Macau-born Connie Fong reminisces. “I used to rent videotapes of Chinese dramas, buy little accessories and visit the Chinese hairdressers there too.”
 The Lucky Dragon Cantonese Restaurant's worn out sign is left hanging on Lyon Works building (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  What used to be a bustling Chinatown is now just an exhibition of derelict shopfronts (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  Another abandoned building found in the Templar Lane and Edward Street area, which has an uncertain future (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |
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 Another remnant of the now forsaken Chinatown, Kim Yee Court: restaurant, bar and KTV (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  An oriental roof feature is left behind on one of the many abandoned buildings facing Vicar Lane (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  A forgotten past lies beneath the bright and lively artwork by university students. (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |
 Presumably, Connie Fong would have visited this arcade as a child to visit the accessories shop and hairdressers. (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  No longer in its former glory (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |
 Despite having more Thai restaurants and shops on Vicar Lane, the people of Leeds now see this road as a replacement Chinatown district for the lost Templar Lane arcade (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  A Chinatown survivor, Hang Sing Hong, was previously located at Templar Lane and was known as Wing Lee Hong Supermarket. It was established in 1979. (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |
Templar Lane back in 2004, compared with 2018. (Left photo credit: Alan Walker and ask-a-chinese-guy.blogspot.co.uk
Things may have been different for the Chinese community if Leeds’ Chinatown had survived the tides of time. Sometime around 2006 to 2008, businesses and restaurants in the area closed their doors one after the other. The unofficial Chinatown was no more.
Perhaps by developing an official Chinatown in Leeds, the community could be better represented in Britain and more attention would be paid to them to help build archives and possibly unite those spread out into the towns beyond the city center. It could also attract more funding to help with stalled schemes and dying Chinese businesses.
“What we had in Templar Street wasn’t a proper Chinatown or anything like what other cities have,” Miss Fong says. “They did try to make it into one, but there wasn’t enough investment and it probably wasn’t the right timing.”
What Connie Fong says is true, as there were plans floating around between 2002-2004 during Councillor Bryan North’s time as Lord Mayor to officiate the area as a labelled Chinatown. But that was soon changed into plans to regenerate the area into a retail, office and restaurant hub which came along with the idea to maybe incorporate a Chinatown within. Landowners Hammersons plc and Town Centre Securities had even carried out a public inquiry with the tenants at the time.
More about Chinatown plans here:
“If I reflect on that, no one ever really took things forward,” says council executive member for regeneration, transport and planning Councillor Richard Lewis. It seems like things were vague on their side as well.
“I suppose the presence of the Victoria Gate development beside it had changed the landscape of the area,” he says. “There was always an understanding regarding the size of the Chinese population and the links we have with the Republic of China,” Cllr Lewis adds, but no vacant land in the city to make way for a Chinatown.
Sometime around then, there were also proposals in place for the erection of the “Gate of Friendship”, a gift from twin city Hangzhou.
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Plans for the Gate of Friendship to be placed at Quarry Hill as seen in the hatched area. Image extracted from Leeds City Council executive board meeting on 19 December 2007.
The proposed location for the gate wasn’t too far from Eastgate where the Chinatown quarter was. Leeds City Council had already approved proposals for it during an executive board meeting in 2007 but nothing came of it even until today.
Cllr Lewis went on to say that there was never a suitable site for the Gate of Friendship either, and the offer for the gate was not accepted. “Regulations around hospitality and civic gifts have been tightened up significantly under President Xi Jinping,” he shares. “Party officials are no longer able to offer gifts over a £100 value, which means the Hangzhou Municipal Government wouldn’t be able to offer such a gift to Leeds anymore.”
Evidently, the Gate of Friendship was not going to be there as a form of representation for the Chinese of Leeds either.
However, officiating the old Chinatown may not have been a grand idea after all, as we now see its definite death. Even Liverpool’s Chinatown, known as the oldest in Europe dating back to 1834 is not being spared from the brutal test of time.
The biggest Chinese supermarket there had just closed sometime recently. Liverpool Chinese Wellbeing society CEO Colin Ling speculates that the main contributing factor is the fact that other smaller Chinese supermarkets and shops have sprouted up nearer to the universities and main streets. “Chinese businesses are still growing, but in a different way. Same for Asian restaurants but they’re now more fusion instead of focusing on a specific cuisine type,” he says.
He admits that although the community is proud of history of their Chinatown, he isn’t fully proud of what it is now, having lost its former glory. Mr Ling has been in Liverpool long enough to see it change. “Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, things were more vibrant. I’ve watched it erode away and there definitely was a huge opportunity to regenerate it but was lost when Liverpool became a depressed area.”
 Still a hotspot for tourist photos, the Liverpool Chinatown arch is now surrounded by empty shops and quiet streets. (Photo credit: Shin Lee) |  The Liverpool Chinatown arch seen in its former glory days (Photo credits: Patrick Higgins) |  Children seen in Liverpool Chinatown (Photo credits: Patrick Higgins) |
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 An old Liverpool Chinatown shopfront, for Low Chung. (Photo credits: Patrick Higgins) |
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It was said that a £200m New Chinatown scheme located a distance from the present one had attracted investment in Liverpool in 2015 but was stalled due to a number of complications. Despite updates in March noting the revival of the project, nothing is set in stone.
He speculates, however, that a planned Chinatown development like the proposed scheme might be able to outlast organic Chinatowns. But we won’t know until the scheme is tried and tested. Maybe, Leeds would follow suit in the future.
London’s Chinatown is also facing some of its own concerns despite being a hotspot for tourists. Goldsmiths University and Runnymede Trust released a report in 2016, highlighting how Chinatown’s significance is changing in the eyes of London’s Chinese.
Report author Professor Caroline Knowles spoke to London’s young Chinese between the age of 23 and 30. “Most of them are part of the new source of migrants from Shanghai, Beijing, and parts of the mainland. Unlike the Cantonese and Fujianese which came in the past,” says Professor Knowles.
This new wave of Chinese are well-off and are working in financial services and entrepreneurial businesses. “They are transnationals with modern mindsets,” she explains. They aren’t as community oriented in the way the previous Chinese generation were as they needed help in a foreign land.
“Because of that, I think the idea of a residential space in the city for co-nationals be it little Italy or Chinatown is perhaps no longer relevant,” adds Prof. Knowles says.
“I’m not sure the idea of a physical space in the city for ethnic communities fit into the 21st Century anymore. People communicate differently now, and relate differently to the cities they live in.”
In essence, societal ideas surrounding ethnic-centric spaces are not similar to the period when Chinatowns formed in the 1800s anymore. And perhaps, the younger generation is growing out of the confines of space, becoming global citizens who accept and integrate into their surrounding society comfortably.
Perhaps like Liverpool and London, Leeds isn’t spared from its own set of challenges in the battle against changing times, even after losing both its unofficial Chinatown and the Gate of Friendship.
Click anywhere to activate interactive map
The data above is based on the 2011 UK census, depicting Chinese population numbers in seven of UK's main cities.
Leeds, a city part of the county of West Yorkshire has been dubbed the seventh largest according to size. The 2011 census shows that the 751,500 persons large city is home to a Chinese population of approximately 6,000 people. This has most probably increased since.
It is unsure as to when the Chinese had started settling in Leeds. Since it wasn’t a port city, it was not as popular. Leeds’ first Chinese community organisation was set up in 1966, named Wah Kwong Association. That period in time may be a point in Leeds’ history noting the rise and prominence of the Chinese in Leeds. Although it is safe to assume that Chinese migrants had been present in the city long before that.
Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence wrote in their book The Chinese in Britain, 1800 - Present to “fill a puzzling gap” of historical studies in Britain. Lynn Pan had also brought attention to the community which was previously away from the spotlight with the Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Writer and performer Anna Chen is also a household name in the field of British Chinese cultural journalism through her ten-part BBC Radio show series named Chinese in Britain. Movies like Peggy Su! which portrays a love story blossoming in Liverpool’s 1960s Chinese community are also in the market.
These books and movies in mainstream media mention very little about Yorkshire and Leeds’ Chinese Community. We know very little about their history of how they came to be who they are today.
Moreover, it has been discovered that Leeds was lacking archives of the Chinese Community. The Digital Community Workspaces research team at the University of Leeds addressed the issue by applying for funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the Connected Communities scheme to create the Leeds is My Home project.
The project aims to develop a relationship between the central library and archives to the broader Chinese community in the city. “Then, people will be enabled to use city resources more, and subsequently encouraging their representation by the city in archives,” says principal researcher Simon Popple.
A documentary made by the Digital Community Workspaces team for the Leeds is My Home project.
The Chinese community had shared some of their stories on a digital platform called Yarn through a digital workshop. There, contributed images and knowledge from the people are coordinated with any historic archive found in Leeds libraries regarding the history of Chinese settlement in Leeds.
He comments further saying: “The Chinese in Leeds have a fantastic history and culture that should be at the heart of the city, and we’re glad that while working with the Leeds Chinese Community School we found that the community is keen to put that right and fully represent themselves too.”
On the other horizon, Leeds’ Chinese are slowly getting the representation they need after the many missed opportunities mentioned above. Unlike London’s Chinese, they are hardly recognised in written archives and plays, but Mary Cooper is changing that. After the success of Shore to Shore’s 2017 tour, funding has hence been approved for Miss Cooper’s play to run again in Summer 2018. The play illustrates the migrant stories of the Chinese in Leeds, therefore representing the community through the arts.
 Shore to Shore audiences were seated at round tables and served food to recreate a home-style Chinese dinner setting, in Oriental City Leeds. (Photo credits: Ian Glover) |  An actress delivering a monologue in the restaurant, telling a true story of a Chinese immigrant in Leeds. (Photo credits: Ian Glover) |  |
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 |  Mary Cooper drew inspiration for the play from the many encounters she had with Chinese writers and migrants who had interesting stories but no platform to share it from. |
“It’s unusual for a drama to incorporate Cantonese, Mandarin, and English altogether but we created a technique seamlessly mixing the three,” Mary Cooper says. Thus helping the older Cantonese generation migrants in understanding the play.
“A lot of people came up to me and thanked me for telling their story. They felt like they were being voiced, as something that they hadn’t seen represented was being done for them,” adds Miss Cooper. “It was really moving for me, so to be able to run the play again is a great joy.”
Things seem to be changing for the Chinese community of Leeds which had always been underrepresented despite its scale.