I got my first taste of Vancouver’s Chinatown shortly after immigrating to Canada in March of 1968. Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s fifteenth Prime Minister a month later.
On a visit to Vancouver, Trudeau dined at one of his favorite restaurants, the On On Tea Garden in Chinatown. The media spread the story and the On On became a popular dining spot among Vancouverites wanting to see what all the fuss was about.
On a rainy fall evening, my sister and a group of her friends took me there for dinner. The aluminum-framed windows fogged by condensation and the sterile fluorescent tube lighting gave the restaurant an eerie glow in the fading evening light.