Glimpses into city’s Korean history
Walking tour reveals story of one family’s adjustment to life in a new country
A little-known fact about the Palmerston branch of the Toronto Public Library: This is where Jason Lee’s aunt learned how to say “I love you” in English.
It was 1988 and she was new to Toronto, learning conversational English so she could talk to her nephews, who were losing their Korean. She wanted it to sound perfect, so she went to the classes offered by the Korean YMCA at this cosy square of concrete, bricks and books.
She even tried out the words on people she didn’t love.
“I never realized how courageous that was,” 36-year-old Lee says to the crowd of 60 people wearing sensible hats and footwear for Heritage Toronto’s walking tour of Koreatown this Saturday.
Every year, Heritage Toronto offers a slate of walking tours that explore the city’s people, its diversity and its little-known stories.
The tours are led by local historians and people who have experience in the community. What’s on offer is not unlike a theatre season — some popular tours return, there are always new ones in the mix, others return after long absences.
On Saturday, as tensions continued to escalate between North Korea and the U.S., a crowd of tourists and curious Torontonians came to learn about Toronto’s Korean history.
Lee begins at the Alpha Korean United Church, at the corner of Bloor St. W. and Huron St., with a microphone bag slung across his shoulder.
He explains that in the unrest of the first half of the 20th century, the presence of Canadian Christian missionaries in Korea led to the first Korean student attending the University of Toronto. More students and others connected to the missions followed.
By 1966, there were 100 Koreans in Toronto. By the 1970s, with a population of roughly 10,000 Koreans in the city, Koreatown had emerged near the University of Toronto, westward on Bloor St. W.
To this day, the church has played a central role as a gathering place for this community.
Lee weaves his own family’s story into the tour as the group makes its way west. His parents moved to Toronto in the late 1970s — his father was a gym teacher, his mother an actress. Their skills didn’t translate, so their only option was to start a business — not unlike many of the other Koreans who came to the city. He talks about the weight that many second-generation children feel when it comes to that legacy.
“After the tour I will be working in my parents’ restaurant with my wife,” he says. “I’m expected. I’m voluntold.”
(Lee is the chairperson of the Koreatown BIA and runs his own uniform business in addition to working at his parents’ restaurant.)
Walking along Bloor St., he points out the bank where many went for loans when other banks turned them down, the newspaper that gave the latest news about groups such as the Korean Canadian Woman’s Association and the grocery store that provided a taste of home.
“To this day, my mother has never walked into a Loblaws,” he says.
He talks about kimchi — “sauerkraut on steroids,” and tells the group that for a Korean woman, her kimchi is her business card — each with a distinctive taste.
The group stops to sample treats — walnut cake from Hodo Kwaja, tea at his parents’ Korean Village Restaurant and roasted rice candy from Korean grocery store PAT Central.
Rain begins to fall and the crowd huddles under an awning before Lee closes the tour in front of a seniors centre, where his grandmother spent many happy hours. He talks about how she always taught him to save money. Now an avid coin collector, he loops back to that message as he presents a set of 2017 Canadian coins to the youngest person on the tour.
“It took me a long time to find the dimes,” he says. “The dimes are the hardest.”
As the crowd leaves, people thank Lee, who, like all of the guides, is a volunteer.
“You really put your heart into it,” one man says.
Then, a woman approaches Lee to ask about the situation in North Korea.
“Loco,” he says, having earlier learned this woman speaks Spanish. He loves learning other languages.
For more than 50 years, people in South Korea have been used to threats from North Korea, he says, but this is different, with the escalating rhetoric from both North Korea and the United States, and the speculation of a mid-August date for a potential North Korean missile strike against Guam. So yes, there is more fear than usual.
“In South Korea they’re used to it,” he says. “For the U.S. and North America, that is not something you’re used to when you wake up and look forward to work and whatever your day holds.”