I walk through China Town fairly frequently so I’m used to the sights sounds and smells that fill your senses, while walking around the main part around the intersection of Spadina and Dundas Avenues. However when Nick and I were there on Friday we saw something neither of us could ever recall having seen in the city before.
Ahead of us was group of (what we assume were) Mennonites. It appeared to be a school trip as the youths were all about the same age, and they were accompanied by a couple of older people who could have been their teachers. They likely came from St Jacobs, a community of old order Mennonites, located about a 2 1/2 hour drive away from Toronto.
Some of the photos I took of the street included them however, as tempted as I am because they were great shots, I am refraining from including those due to my newly discovered understanding that it is against their faith to have their picture taken.
The street is narrow and passing people is not that easy so we were behind this group of visitors for a couple of blocks and were able to observe. This could not have been a common thing for them, however they seemed extremely cool and calm with all that was going on around them. The only thing a bit different about them, aside from their manner of dress, with the girls in long printed cotton dresses and hair tightly braided into two long plaits, and the boys in jeans or pants and tidy buttoned short-sleeve shirts, was how interested they were to see an airplane fly overhead, fairly low, making its descent to the airport nearby.
Happy Monday my friends,
xo loulou