The daytime-nighttime dichotomy exists partly because most of the city's Asian community now lives elsewhere, in neighbourhoods like tony Kerrisdale or suburban Coquitlam. Other areas, like Burnaby and Richmond, have new Asian supermarkets and shopping malls to serve shoppers, but the historic streets of Chinatown remain the community's cultural core. The Chinese Cultural Centre is here, as is the museum and archives, housed in a new building designed in Ming Dynasty style with it's sweeping tiled roofline. Still, the old neighbourhood remains a lively centre of commerce, and both Chinese and non-Chinese crowd the streets here to shop and eat. Shops like Nutra Trading Co., which specialize in preserved and dried foods, have boxes of roots and seeds stacked in the street, the aromas of salted oysters and mussels for a special congee distinct in the air.
Some shops specialize in meat.
Others only do fish. While one customer buys a lean pork roast or a container of mahogany-coloured barbecued duck, others choose a loop of dried lop cheong sausage or a flattened piece of preserved and dried duck to serve over rice. Fish markets like Pender Seafood display a fresh catch of flat grey flounder, avocado and black-striped China rockfish and live crab, set on their backs with their pincers grasping at the cool morning air. Nearby at the Pine House Bread and Cake Shop, a woman stands behind a single burner on the sidewalk, steaming bundles of sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and serving breakfast bites like egg tarts and Chinese donuts. Good cooks looking for great toys love Chinatown, too.