Canada issues Chinatown gates stamps to celebrate Asian heritage

A man walks past the posters of Chinatown Gates stamps in Ottawa, Canada, May 1, 2013. Canada Post launched a special series of stamps featuring Chinatown gates located in eight cities across the country on Wednesday to highlight the longstanding heritages of Chinese-Canadians. [Photo/Xinhua]

The most challenging part, Albert Ng said, was trying to simplify it enough to fit into a stamp, while also maintaining the most integral characteristics of the gate.

These paifangs, which were made out of wood or stone to separate subdivisions in Chinese cities, have long lost its role but remained as monuments.

The gateway for the Mississauga Chinese Center, a Chinese mall which opened in 1987, measures roughly 43 feet tall. The structure was built with 17,000 cubic meters of timber, and the most impressive part was that not a single nail was used in its construction. Instead, they used wooden studs to build the gate to demonstrate the high building technique of Chinese architecture.

With so much history and details attached to the structure, Albert Ng had to figure out how he wanted to depict the architectural masterpiece in his stamp. "This is very unique, the Chinatown gate with the dragon wall behind it, so I wanted to show it," he said.

"I wanted to show the environment, the surrounding area of the Chinatown gate, show the dragon wall. And the characteristic of this Chinatown gate is very similar to those I saw in Beijing, so I wanted to use that expression."

Each of the eight gates on the stamps depicted distinct elements and stories behind them.

Victoria's gates honors Chinese-Canadian soldiers from the Second World War, while the Millennium Gate in Vancouver draws inspiration from the Inner City Gates of 19th and 20th century Beijing, and Edmonton's gate marks the relationship with Chinese sister city Harbin.

Albert Ng said the series have a significant meaning to each and every Chinese-Canadian like himself.

"It represents the community," he said. "I think that's very important for each city ... especially now we have a series of stamps, it just raises the recognition of the Chinese-Canadians in Canada, and also shows their contribution to Canada."

Stamp collector Helen Ho, who immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong more than 40 years ago, was one of dozens who lined up on Wednesday to get her hands on the new stamps.

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