Chinatowns in Canada and the United States are marked by cultural hybridity, where the translation of various types, verbal and non-verbal, takes place to produce distinct urban meanings. On the basis of an ethnographic observation, this article reveals the role of translation in the signification and imagination of Chinatowns. Cultural diaspora in relation to multimodal translation is designed as a theoretical framework, under which linguistic, aesthetic and cross-cultural tensions are explained. It argues that the urban meanings of Chinatowns are generated through an omnipresent practice of translation enacted by the interplay of text, image and culture across time and space. In the meantime, Chinatowns have evolved from ethnic enclaves into cosmopolitan prototypes for future cities. A translational perspective on Chinatowns incorporates visual semiotics into verbal languages to unpack cross-cultural relations, which informs a great deal about the nature of translation.