Memories
Maria Cheung Father worked nearby
On Fridays my Dad would pick me up after school and would take me to Dragon Centre as he worked around the corner at Trustwell Realty that was in the adjacent building. This was around 1990 and onward when I was 10 years old.
I would beg him to take me to the bakery to buy a couple cartoon icing characters or cookies and a baked sweet and then I would go from interesting shop to shop looking for things that a young girl would like including smelly stickers from the bookstore and haw flakes from the dried goods store. I think at one point there was a front pond with fish in it.
My Dad would be very proud of the really affordable bowl of won ton mein or dish he found at one of the restaurants or food court.
My memories elude me as I have moved abroad for many years and am 39 years old now! At the time when I was young it was all about commerce and buying things but now as I fondly look back, it was about memories with my Dad and the time after my parents divorce where my Dad was rebuilding his life in this area that I did not grow up in previously. It was a truly magical place to a youngster especially during Chinese New Year. I loved all the noise, colour and excitement that came once a year here. My Dad and I would watch all the amusements. I still remember the one joke on the wall that read “No more tea for the teacher, please take her away”. The answer was the letter ‘C’!!! We didn’t win that one but I thought it was super witty.
When I met my husband in Toronto in 2003 when I was 23 he would tell me that when he lived in Scarborough as a youth he would also frequent Dragon Centre to buy video games and also later eat with his cousin at Cecelia’s Restaurant. I often thought after we met that there must have been a day way back then before we even knew of one another that we must have crossed paths not knowing that years later we would find each other and become husband and wife.
I did visit Dragon Centre with my own family of 3 young kids under 5 on a recent visit to the area in 2017. It was nice to be able to recount the tales of my own youth to them as they love to hear adventures about their Gong Gong!