War on Trash: Day 11 (CHINATOWN!)


 Posted on July 2nd, 2009
 by Patrick 8 great comments. Room for one more!

Do you support the CUPE 416/79 strike action?

  • What's a CUPE? (61%)
  • No - CHINATOWN! (33%)
  • Yes - I am definitely evil (6%)

Most readers say: What's a CUPE?

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Is it fair to say that we were all concerned about Chinatown? According to the survey, those who know what a CUPE is show grave concern for the place, while only one person is definitely evil.

Well, is seems that at least one of the fears has been realized. A rather stanky waft of eggy air meanders along Dundas near Spadina among open bins, but it’s possible that the smell may have been there before the War:

spadina

You have to hand it to the resourceful shopkeepers around Spadina for ingeniously mixing trash in with the merchandise. Not only do they profit from it, but tourists take the trash with them out of the city:

trash

The tiny little five-dollar treasure soon becomes the little Buddha with the toxic peeling golden skin and (upon closer inspection) horribly disfigured plastic face. He probably shouldn’t appear to be leering lustily at you, of that I’m fairly sure.

Despite this, these things must be selling like hotcakes (with real Canadian Maple syrup), because the stores lining Spadina are packed with this stuff:

trash

There’s actually a store owner in there somewhere. Almost Zen-like. Almost.

The people of Chinatown certainly are resilient, but it remains to be seen how much longer trash will be tolerated in this neighbourhood; how many more good trash bins must be lost before the people declare enough.

I sure hope they aren’t depending on some fiberglass moose for luck:

lucky charm moose village

Moose have never been particularly lucky around piles of trash. Usually ends up with the moose spilling something on his new white shirt. And that’s doubly aggravating because of the amount of time it took him to just get that thing out of the package. Then those awful little pins; for an animal with hooves … and the buttons!

Yeah, no moose. Bad scene.

So trash exports it is for the foreseeable future. The brave people of Chinatown march on.

8 Comments on “ War on Trash: Day 11 (CHINATOWN!) ”

  • Tomas
    July 2nd, 2009 11:00 pm

    Your photos catch my eye. The pictures talk loudly – your images teach to appreciate a sip of fresh air more than we usually do.

    Thank you for the wonderful visual sermon, so to speak.


  • Eddie Garcia
    July 2nd, 2009 11:14 pm

    It is apparent that Chinatown definitely has a trash problem. It is a crying shame that many individuals think nothing of discarding their trash on the ground instead of a trash can. I see the same thing in my front yard and it truly gets on my last nerve. Thanks for the photos that so vividly reflects what's going on in your part of the world.

    Friends 4 Life!


  • Patrick
    July 3rd, 2009 2:29 pm

    Thanks muchly to you both for the nice comments. I put much love, care, and bodily fluids into each photo.

    Eddie: I hear ya. My building's front yard is usually hostings someone's dinner container. The problem with Chinatown is that there's really no place to get rid of your trash. Locals should know better, but for everyone else…


  • Lidian
    July 3rd, 2009 3:37 pm

    That moose must have been rooting around in neon green and yellow trash – best not to inquire too closely into that, i suppose.


  • Patrick
    July 6th, 2009 8:38 am

    Lidian, these moose are the remnants of a campaign during the Mel Lastman years. They were painted by local "artists" and sold off at auction. The idea of the auction, in my opinion, was a great one (I think the money went to charity and). What was being auctioned off, well, you can see for yourself — not the best idea.


  • Lisa365
    July 3rd, 2009 4:00 pm

    Hah, I was going to snap the same disgusting garbage photo when I was in the city on Monday. So sad!

    Thanks for sharing, and thanks for dropping a card on my photo blog :-)


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