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Brisbane’s New Chinatown – Authentic Culture and Traditional Experiences – Sunnybank, Nathan, Robertson Sunnybank and surrounds are now coined by Chinese locals as Brisbane's new Chinatown, with the traditional Fortitude Valley area seen as "old China"- expensive, a parking hassle and designed primarily for Western tourists. Young Chinese from Sunnybank - mostly from Taiwan or mainland China - see Chinatown in Fortitude Valley as the home of Brisbane's night clubs, and not the centre of their culture. Spend a day in Sunnybank or Robertson near Mt Gravatt Shopping Centre and you will walk through the densest and most interesting population of Chinese in Brisbane. At Sunnybank Plaza Shopping Centre, Gordon Fu's marketing manager Lisa Smith grew up at Sunnybank and went to MacGregor High. To this 38-year-old professional this southern side of Brisbane has evolved relatively comfortably over two decades into Brisbane's real Chinatown. "Sunnybank was established in large part by Chinese market gardeners, because the soil is so rich," she said. "So I think that is probably where it started, probably in the 1940s and 1950s.” It wasn't until the mid 1980s that she noticed how Sunnybank was evolving. "Since growing up and realising that there is more than just China in Asia, I, and others, began to realise that they were probably Taiwanese, or from Hong Kong, or from mainland China. I found that this was something that the area had to address back in 1988, 1989." Today the region sits easily as the real Chinatown. "It really is an automatic thing because the residents around here access our centres because we have what they need. We have Asian Supermarkets, we have Asian butchers, and we have Asian bakeries. And we have a myriad of restaurants and we find that they dine out a lot."