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April 30 History of the Canadian Chinese Community, Part 5With Jiang Jie Shi leading China, there were two issues to deal with: the Japanese and the communists. He wanted to but felt he hadn't the clout at his disposal to expel both from the country simultaneously. He decided that the communists were enemy number one and kept acquiescing to Japanese demands for further incursions into China so that he could concentrate all his energies on smothering the communists first before kicking out the Japanese.
Most Chinese at that time didn't know much about the western ideology of communism and they deplored the Japanese and their imperialistic aggression. Because of this they began to question Jiang's competence and his policies.
In retaliation of Jiang's turn against them, the communists established a rival government in southern China. In 1934, Jiang's armies flushed out the communists from their bases triggering the famous Long March. By the end of the following year, the communists had marched 10,000 kilometres over a winding route, obstructed by mountain ranges and rivers, to the province of Shaanxi in the north. Only eight thousand of the original 100,000 personnel who began the march survived until the end. During the march, Mao Ze Dong (see photo below) rose to prominence, becoming leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
 Already opposed to Jiang's yielding to Japanese aggression, the Chinese began to sympathize with the communists, especially from their Long March. Anti-Japanese demonstrations gave the Communists the idea to adopt a new strategy: a united front against Japan. Jiang certainly didn't want to work with the communists to expel the Japanese. But many military leaders under him disagreed. They kidnapped Jiang and detained him in Xi'an. He was released only after agreeing to end the war with the communists and join them in a crusade to drive the Japanese out of the country.
There is a date that every Chinese knows. It is a date permanently etched in their minds, hearts, and souls. It is a date, the mention of which will cause, in any Chinese, tears to well up, spirits to drop, hearts to break, and stomachs to churn. And that date is July 7th, 1937.
The spark of a minor conflict between Japanese and Chinese troops near Beijing, ignited a full-scale war. Soon after, the Japanese sacked Shanghai. We dare not go into the details of their massacre of Nanjing; to sum it up, in three weeks, the Japanese slaughtered no less than 300,000 people and committed tens of thousands of rapes. The Nanjing Massacre is one of the most atrocious events in the history of the world.
By the end of 1938, Japan controlled most of eastern China. The Nationalist forces retreated to the Province of Sichuan, making Chongqing the new Chinese capital. Masses of people from eastern cities streamed west to Chongqing for safety. The author Amy Tan in her famous novel The Joy Luck Club writes of those days of doom:
…my mother (Wu Su Yuan) began, speaking Chinese. …"An army officer came to my house early one morning … and told me to go quickly to my husband in Chongqing. And I knew he was telling me to run away from Guilin. I knew what happened to officers and their families when the Japanese arrived. How could I go? There were no trains leaving Guilin. My friend from Nanjing, she was so good to me. She bribed a man to steal a wheelbarrow used to haul coal. She promised to warn our other friends.
"I packed my things and my two babies into this wheelbarrow and began pushing to Chongqing four days before the Japanese marched into Guilin. On the road I heard news of the slaughter from people running past me. It was terrible. Up to the last day, the Guomindang insisted that Guilin was safe, protected by the Chinese army. But later that day, the streets of Guilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Guomindang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people—men, women, and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead. When I heard this news, I walked faster and faster, asking myself at each step, Were they foolish? Were they brave?
"I pushed toward Chongqing, until my wheel broke. I abandoned my beautiful majiang table of hong mu (redwood). But then I didn't have enough feeling left in my body to cry. I tied scarves into slings and put a baby on each side of my shoulder. I carried a bag in each hand, one with clothes, the other with food. I carried these things until deep grooves grew in my hands. And I finally dropped one bag after the other when my hands began to bleed and became too slippery to hold on to anything.
"Along the way, I saw others had done the same, gradually given up hope. It was like a pathway inlaid with treasures that grew in value along the way. Bolts of fine fabric and books. Paintings of ancestors and carpenter tools. Until one could see cages of ducklings now quiet with thirst and, later still, silver urns lying in the road, where people had been too tired to carry them for any kind of future hope. By the time I arrived in Chongqing I had lost everything except for three fancy silk dresses which I wore one on top of the other."
"What do you mean by 'everything'?" I gasped at the end. … "What happened to the babies?"
Western powers did little to help China during its pleas for help, its writhing with agony, gripped in the claws of Japanese hounding. But there was one man who did. And he didn't do this half-heartedly. He ended up sacrificing his life for his Chinese brethren. And for this, every single Chinese today knows his name and every Chinese student is required to read an essay on him in school. And that man is a Canadian surgeon named Norman Bethune (known to the Chinese as Bai Qiu En, see photo below).
 Dr. Bethune arrived in China to help in their war efforts. Proceeding to northern mountains where the fighting was exceptionally intense and where only a few capable doctors resided to care for the 13 million people in the area, Bethune organized a systematic training of volunteers to provide basic first aid and carry out simple surgical procedures, converted over twenty abandoned buildings into hospitals, and invented the world's first mobile blood transfusion unit. He, himself, operated on wounded Chinese soldiers, one time labouring for sixty-nine hours straight on 115 of them. Dr. Norman Bethune died of blood poisoning on November 12, 1939. He is regarded by the Chinese today as a hero and a martyr and his memory is immortalized in Chairman Mao's essay on him which concludes with the words:
"We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With this spirit everyone can be very helpful to each other. A man's ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people."
Only one day after Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbour, China joined the WWII Allies. Although the allies rendered assistance to China, it was inadequate to save them. Inflation ran rampant and the Nationalists fell out of favour with the Chinese populace. While the Nationalists failed to make headway in the south, the communist army grew and they gained ground from the Japanese in the north.
After Japan's surrender to the Allies and retreat from China (including Taiwan), the United States sent General Marshall to attempt a political settlement between the Nationalists and Communists. But his mission was a failure and a civil war broke out in mid-1946.
During the Second World War, 500 Chinese Canadian men served in the Canadian army. After the war, Canada signed the United Nations Charter of Human Rights which lay in direct conflict with Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act from 1923. It was annulled in 1947. The United States, by the way, also did away with their similar ban on Chinese immigration.
The CBC writes:
"In the next few years, most of the other legislation that discriminated against Chinese Canadians was dismantled. They had, for instance, been disenfranchised during the First World War. Before he died at age 94, Won Alexander Cumyow [Wen Jin You]—that first Canadian-born Chinese baby, born in Port Douglas, B.C., in 1861—got his chance to cast a ballot. Chinese Canadians regained the right to vote in federal elections in 1947." April 29 History of the Canadian Chinese Community, Part 4Peltonator's note: I apologize for writing so much about China and so little about the Chinese in Canada in Part 3. There was a lot going on in China at that time and in order to understand the background of the Chinese who came to Canada, I felt it necessary. Here, in Part 4, is more about the Canadian Chinese Community. Enjoy.
China, disillusioned with the republican experiment, began to degenerate into a warlord state despite successions to the office of presidency. Dr. Sun quickly gained support from southern warlords and Chinese youth and set up a rival government in Guangzhou. By 1922, civil war was rife.
After the First World War, Canada entered into an economic recession: many Canadian industries that had flourished during the conflict shut down, and soldiers that had returned home found themselves unable to find employment. On its 56th birthday (July 1, 1923), the Canadian government, under the leadership of Mackenzie King (see photo below), passed the disgraceful Exclusion Act, legislation which made Chinese the only people the country has ever explicitly barred from immigration on the basis of their race. A portrait of Mackenzie King can be seen on Canada's $50 bill. For the next 24 years, practically no Chinese were permitted to immigrate to Canada.
 What was especially demoralizing was that many Chinese men had immigrated to Canada first to secure a home and a job before inviting their wives and children to leave China to join them. Because of the new regulations, many wives and children were left stranded in China, unable to join their husbands on the other side of the Pacific. The Canadian census in 1931 shows that for every 100 Chinese men in Canada, there were only 8 Chinese women.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports:
"For years, the president of the Vancouver Chinese Benevolent Association made an annual trek to Ottawa to petition for the law to be amended. 'What we ask is not an open door to all Chinese who wish to come,' Foon Sien told the authorities. 'Our appeal is that the Chinese Canadian may have his family with him - a complete family, not one part in Canada and the other part in Hong Kong or China.' With no new immigrants allowed in and some returning to China, the Chinese population of Canada declined from 46,500 in 1931 to 32,500 in 1951."
Furthermore, laws were passed in some provinces that induced Chinese-only businesses. Chinese owned companies, for example, were forbidden to hire white females. Chinese-Canadians reacted to this by observing Dominion Day (July 1st) as "Humiliation Day", closing shops and boycotting the annual national birthday celebrations.
During this quarter-century of racial discrimination, Chinese who wouldn't be hired by white employers began to start their own businesses, especially family run enterprises, like restaurants and laundries. These popped up in the Chinatowns that had emerged in the country's larger cities as well as in small towns across Canada. Nowadays in Canada, even the smallest, remotest town has at least one Chinese restaurant. These small businesses served as a breath of fresh air for Chinese-Canadians, who now had places to work and earn a living.
Back in China, amidst all the chaos that had gripped the nation, communist student groups, influenced by Soviets, began to spring up in Beijing and Shanghai probably at a similar rate as those small capitalist ventures popped up in Chinese Canada. The Soviets persuaded the Chinese communists to support the southern Nationalist Party under Dr. Sun and assist its members to organize an attack on the northern warlords.
The revolutionary spirit among the southern nationalists was dealt a heavy blow in 1925, however, when Dr. Sun died. The leadership eventually passed to military commander Jiang Jie Shi (also known as Chiang Kai-Shek - see photo below) who led the campaign to conquer the northern warlords, winning some significant victories. But dissension arose among the Nationalists as many political disagreements over its direction flourished. A labour union strike in Shanghai led Jiang to expel the communists. Troops began to arrest and execute many communists whose leaders fled to the mountains of the Province of Jiangxi. Finally, in 1928, the Nationalists captured Beijing and united the country under one government for the first time in a dozen years.
 On "Black Tuesday" (29 October 1929) in the United States there was a huge stock market crash, heralding the Great Depression that was to blacken most of the world's economy. It certainly affected Canada. In 1933 one in five Canadians was out of work. In some parts of Canada, relief payments were doled out. But in many cases, Chinese-Canadians were given only half of what the rest of Canada received. Despite this, magnanimous Chinese shop owners gave white Canadians credits in their purchases of vital supplies, without which they may have starved.
In China, though the Nationalist government was once again in charge, it really was little more than a one-party dictatorship that never gained complete control of China; Japanese and communist antagonism hampered its clout. In 1931, the Japanese celebrated their conquest of Manchuria. Three years later, they installed Pu Yi as emperor of this puppet state. They furthered their campaign of imperialism with military incursions into Inner Mongolia and other regions of the Chinese north. Their series of demands met Jiang's consent, because he felt unprepared to battle with the Japanese until he had beaten the Communists. This attitude was to be proven his big mistake. April 28 History of the Canadian Chinese Community, Part 3With the Opium Wars and the Taiping rebellion over, one would think that China could finally rest from conflicts. But in 1894 and 1895, the Chinese engaged in a devastating war with Japan, which wasn't to be their last. The Chinese were forced to accept Japan's control over Korea and to hand over the island of Taiwan.
Around this time, Chinese rebels, perhaps countering the philosophy of the Taipings, founded secret societies violently opposed to the spread of Western and Christian influences. The most significant of these was the Boxer Society, known as the Yihetuan in Chinese. In 1900, the secret societies, led by the Boxers, unleashed their campaign of terror, slaying Westerners, in what became know as The Boxer Rebellion. Western powers, however, with 50,000 troops and 50 warships, quickly put an end to it.
To attempt saving their deteriorating rule, the Qing unveiled a system of reforms to Chinese society. They organized a Western-style army, remodelled the education system and sent students to study abroad, decentralized the government, and made plans to adopt a constitution. Alas, the reforms came too late to salvage the dynasty.
A desire burned in the hearts of many Chinese to convert China into a republic. Enter Dr. Sun. Revolutionary organizations cropped up to form the United League, selecting Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (known as Sun Zhong Shan in China) as their leader (pictured below).
 Dr. Sun was born in the Chinese Province of Guangdong and received a western education in Hong Kong and Hawaii, becoming a physician. From 1895 to 1911, he traveled around the world to drum up sympathy for republican ideals for China and gain financial support for his movement against the Qing Dynasty. Dr. Sun is perhaps the only Chinese leader in the past century loved today by both the Chinese themselves as well as the non-Chinese world.
In December 1908, the Qing emperor died, coincidentally around the same time as two other prestigious members of the Qing court. Devoid of suitable replacements, a three-year-old boy, the late emperor's nephew, was enthroned. This boy, later known as Henry Pu Yi, was to be the last emperor of China (photo below).
 From 1905 to 1911, the rebels discharged a series of unsuccessful assaults against the Manzus. Refusing to give up, they staged a large-scale uprising in Wuchang. Within only a few months, all Chinese central and southern provinces had declared their independence from the Qing regime.
The revolutionary leaders met in Nanjing in December 1911 to arrange for China's conversion to a republic. Dr. Sun was appointed temporary president. The Manzus asked the wily retired military officer, Yuan Shikai, to crush the republicans, but he arranged a secret settlement with Dr. Sun and his supporters asking to become president of the Republic.
On 12 February 1912, Emperor Pu Yi was forced to abdicate his throne and Yuan became president of China after Sun agreed to step down.
China became a republic. But the initial joy of the Chinese at being released from monarchical rule proved to be too hasty.
The republicans established the Guomingdang (Nationalist Party), which got off to a good start. One of the biggest problems in China that the new government decided to tackle was the language problem. Every region, nay every locality, in the country spoke a different Chinese dialect, unintelligible to everyone else in the country. How could the country be united if no one could communicate with someone outside his community? The government decided to standardize spoken Chinese. In 1913, a committee of expert linguists was assigned to the task of coming up with a standard spoken form of Chinese. This would not replace the various dialects, but everyone would learn this in addition to their local dialect, enabling all Chinese to communicate with one another. This standard dialect was based on the northern dialect and came to be known as Mandarin in the west. In Mainland China it is known as Putonghua, and in Taiwan it is called Guoyu.
But it soon became clear to his colleagues that President Yuan, in a desire for personal power, wanted to follow his own agenda. In 1913, a revolt against him failed and the Nationalist leaders fled to Japan. Coinciding with the inauguration of World War I, Yuan's presidency transformed into a dictatorship, and he took steps to establish himself as the new emperor of China (photo below). His own adherents, however, opposed the reestablishment of Imperial rule, and provincial military leaders demanded that he give up the presidency. Soon Yuan became seriously ill and died in 1916. This resulted in many groups claiming that they were the real government of China.
 With all the tumultuous changes on the west side of the Pacific, things were heating up on the east as well. Europe was at war and many young Canadian men were eager to join in the battle. There is a chapter of World War I history, unknown to most people, with Chinese labourers at its center. Beginning in April 1917 one of the governments of China which had joined the war on the side of the Western allies offered Canadian Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden (see photo below) thousands of Chinese labourers to fight in the war. Over the course of one year, 80,000 Chinese men were shipped from China to Vancouver, put into sealed boxcars, transported across the Canadian Pacific Railway—part of which their fellow countrymen had built themselves—to the east coast of Canada, and then shipped to the trenches of France. At the end of the war, the Chinese troops were sent back along the same route. During both directions of the Canadian rail transport, the Chinamen were sealed in the boxcars lest they jump off to remain in Canada without having to pay the $500 head tax required of Chinese immigrants, a lot of money in those days. Canada has rewarded Sir Robert Borden's memory by placing his picture on the $100 bill, the highest denomination of money in common use.
 April 27 History of the Canadian Chinese Community, Part 2There is an English expression: jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. This means that you leave a bad situation but end up going into one just as bad, if not worse. To a certain extent this was the fate of many of the early Chinese migrants to Canada. Let's look at what was happening in China during the Qing Dynasty in more detail first.
The Qing continued the Ming Dynasty's policy of closure to foreign countries, severely limiting contact with foreign people and restricting trade to the port of Guangzhou. From this port, China exported large quantities of silk and tea to the West but were unsatisfied with whatever goods the West proposed to give in return. In the early 1800s, the Europeans began to illegally smuggle opium in China, resulting in masses of the population suffering from addiction to the drug as well as serious damage to the Chinese economy.
In 1839, Chinese officials attempted to stop the trade by seizing 20,000 crates of opium from British warehouses in Guangzhou. A war broke out sparked by the event of drunken British sailors murdering a Chinese. The British were victorious and a treaty was signed in 1842—the Treaty of Nanjing. Provisions of the treaty were that China had to pay a large indemnity, give Hong Kong to Britain, and open five ports to trade and give the British residence rights in China. Two years later, China was forced to sign similar treaties with the United States, and France; other European nations were granted comparable privileges later on.
The British seeking to further their trading rights in China, found excuses to renew hostilities. The French joined in the battle this time and this second war ended with the signing of another treaty, granting the opening of additional Chinese ports, the rights of foreigners to travel through the interior of China, and foreign shipping on the Yangtze River. Further negotiations in Shanghai involving the legalization of opium in China spawned more antagonism. Western powers seized Beijing and burned the emperor's summer palace. These Opium Wars dealt heavy blows to the Chinese faith in the Qing leadership.
From 1851 to 1864, millions of lives were lost in the Taiping rebellion. The Taipings were a band of reformers who wanted to do away with Confucianism and the Qing rulers, combine Christian and Chinese beliefs, and divide the land equally among the people. The Taipings were finally defeated, after the civil conflict, with foreign powers aiding the Qing armies because of their interests in maintaining the terms of the treaties.
With this great social unrest, combined with overpopulation, poverty, and the opening up of China to the world, many Chinese willingly left their country. Most of these vowed to return when conditions improved. Yet other Chinese were kidnapped by press gangs and taken to the west. They were to be called coolies from the Chinese term kuli (bitter power).
Rather than embracing our Chinese brothers, upholding and defending them in the face of oppression, helping them to improve their lives and the lives of their families, Canadians treated them shamefully.
After the gold rush frenzy eased on the west coast of Canada, 17,000 Chinese became builders of the British Columbia section of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). B.C. agreed to join Confederation on the condition that the railway was continued, linking them with eastern Canada. Canada's First Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald (see photo below) betrayed the wishes of his constituents, who wanted labourers brought over from Britain, by insisting on the cost-cutting measure of employing Chinese workers. They knew they could get away with paying them next-to-nothing and working them to death. British Columbia Canadian Pacific Railway construction contractor, Andrew Onderdonk, an American, recruited Chinese labourers from California and signed agreements with contractors in China. Over five thousand Chinese workers were shipped over from China.
The 17,000 Chinese railway workers were paid only half to one-third of the wages of the white workers, and the task was so overwhelming that 700 of them died. Many became ill and perished in accidents, such as while planting explosives. Many of them deserted to work in the goldfields, so Onderdonk had to recruit more. They were assigned to construct a 500 kilometre stretch of the railway in the most treacherous area of the Province—the Fraser Canyon. Most of the Chinese labourers were given living quarters in tents, which were vulnerable to falling rocks or severe weather. Non-Chinese foremen and shift supervisors, and railwaymen recruited from the U.K. were housed in sleeping cars and railway-built houses.
Those who were wise enough to steer clear of railway construction, ventured into cooking and laundering. Canadian rednecks joked that Chinese men were more than welcome to do this "women's work". Some Chinese also worked as servants for rich white families.
Chinese already in Canada migrated east or returned to China at the completion of the CPR. The Chinese were tolerated while they were a source of cheap labour: they were seen as industrious and contributing factors to the prosperity of the nation. But, in 1885, when the CPR's last spike was driven into the ground, thousands of workers were laid off and people began to remark that the Chinese were taking work away from the whites, triggering Canada's move later in the year, under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald (whose portrait appears now on Canada's $10 bill), to impose a "Head Tax" on Chinese wanting to enter the country. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 levied a "Head Tax" of $50 on any Chinese coming to Canada. When this failed to thwart Chinese immigration, the amount was raised to $100 at the turn of century. Four years later it was increased again to the prohibitive amount of $500, the equivalent of around $15,000 today.
Things were to get much worse for the Chinese—on both sides of the Pacific—before they ever got better.  April 25 History of the Canadian Chinese Community, Part 1The Manzu-led Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty in China, which became a republic in 1912. It was founded in 1616 by the khan Nu'erhaci, posthumously declared an emperor.
The fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty was Kang Xi who ruled China from 1661 to 1722, or 61 years, making him the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history and one of the longest in the world. Kang Xi is regarded by most Chinese as the greatest emperor of the Qing Dynasty and one of the greatest in the history of China. Kang Xi succeeded in expanding the Chinese empire into Russia, Mongolia, and Korea and defeated generals in charge of powerful armies that refused to submit to Qing rule. After many years of civil war, Kang Xi's rule brought stability and wealth to the country.
Perhaps his most notable accomplishment was the Kangxi dictionary. In order to standardize written Chinese, he ordered a compilation of all Chinese characters. The final product contained some 47,000 of them. They were grouped under 214 radicals and arranged by the number of additional strokes in the character. The Kangxi radicals are still used today as a method of categorizing Chinese characters.
In 1712, Kang Xi declared that emigration was a capital crime because surely only enemies of the imperial court would choose to forsake The Middle Kingdom, the greatest civilization on the planet. He declared that anyone who settled overseas must return to be beheaded.
Kang Xi was succeeded by his son, the Yongzheng Emperor who ruled for only 13 years. In 1735, the very conservative Qianlong Emperor led the empire until 1796. It is said that because of his ethnocentric attitudes, the Dynasty's decline began in the later part of his reign. It was during this time that the first Chinese visited the lands that were to become Canada.
In 1788 British explorer John Meares visited the then Portuguese colony of Macao. He befriended many Chinese carpenters and sailed with 70 of them across the Pacific to Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. They paid their respect to Meares by building him a boat. It is said that they married into native communities on the island. But traces of them were lost and remain a mystery.
During the next half a century, there was rapid population growth in China and agricultural output could not keep up. Wealth was restricted to a small group of land-owners. Beginning in 1839, China was embroiled in the Opium Wars with Britain. Its defeat meant signing treaties which allowed, among other things, emigration of Chinese citizens.
The United States, having abolished slavery, was seeking a new pool of cheap labour. And they found it in Chinese peasants. From the crowded coastal provinces of Fujian and more notably Guangdong, Chinese migrants abandoned a life of abject poverty and social unrest for one of tough labour and racial discrimination in the United States of America.
The fist big wave of migration from China to North America was in 1849, during the California gold rush. San Francisco was to be nicknamed "Old Gold Mountain" (Jiu Jin Shan) by the Chinese migrants. A decade later, when the arteries of gold were drying up and that anti-Oriental sentiment was getting all the juicier, rumour of striking gold in British Columbia's Fraser River Valley was all the Chinese needed as an excuse for moving north. The rumour also cajoled Chinese to migrate to B.C. directly from China. When they arrived they were told that they would be granted permission to work in the mines only when the miners had moved on.
In 1858, Wen Lin Ling left Guangdong Province in China for San Francisco. Later, he headed up to Canada, settling in Port Douglas, British Columbia. Early in 1861, his wife gave birth to a son, Wen Jin You (温金有) also known by the Cantonese name of Won Cum Yow. He was named properly because Jin You means "having gold" and he was born in the midst of the Fraser Valley Gold Rush. He was the first Chinese born in Canada and was given the English name Alexander. What is significant is that he was born in Canada before confederation in 1867, meaning that the Chinese, in addition to the British and French were in Canada at the time it became a country. Alexander Wen Jin You should be regarded as the grandfather of the Canadian Chinese community. (See previous blog entry for more on Mr. Wen.)
In the goldfields, the Chinese proved to be better miners than others, using some imaginative techniques. They used blankets as a filter for alluvial sand and then burned them, resulting in the gold melting into lumps in the fire. April 24 The First Chinese-CanadianIf I were to choose a particular group of people in the world who have impressed me most, it would be Chinese-Canadians, more especially those who themselves or whose ancestors immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong. They combine the best elements of both cultures and blend them in a way that makes them beautiful.
In the 1930s, my maternal grandparents went to live in Singapore. My grandfather worked for the Ford Motor Company there. One of my aunts was born while there. When the world began to be swept up in the crisis that was World War II, they moved back to Ottawa, brining with them a deep attraction to and admiration for Chinese people. When I was growing up, they transferred some of this spirit to me. Their house in Ottawa was filled with beautiful (what would today be regarded as antique) Chinese furniture that they had had shipped from Singapore. They took me to Chinese restaurants and taught me how to use chopsticks. My grandma always spoke a little Chinese to the waiters.
When elementary school kicked off for me, in North Vancouver, my first grade teacher was Chinese as were several of my classmates. It took us a while to warm up to them. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for them putting up with all the teasing they must have been given. One Chinese girl shared the same birthday as me. And I remember while on the school bus everyone, knowing full well that it was her birthday too, kept wishing me, alone, a happy birthday. Now, fifteen percent of Vancouverites are Chinese.
As I sit here now in the largest city in China with a Chinese wife, I, a Canadian for several generations, whose ancestors came from Britain in the mid-19th century, wonder how it all started in Canada—how these wonderful people came to be in our midst.
It all began in 1858 when Wen Lin Ling left Guangdong Province in China and moved to San Francisco. Later, he headed up to Canada, settling in Port Douglas, British Columbia, becoming a restaurant and shop owner. Early in 1861, his wife gave birth to a son, Wen Jin You (温金有) also known by the Cantonese name of Won Cum Yow. He was named properly because Jin You means "having gold" and he was born in the midst of the Fraser Valley Gold Rush. He was the first Chinese born in Canada. His was given the English name Alexander.
 Alexander Wen Jin You attended high school in New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver, after which he studied law. The luckiest number in Chinese culture is 8. The more eights, the better. But luck did not come to Mr. Wen in the year 1888. He articled but was denied a license, most probably because of his race. So, he did what the noblest of people in these situations do—he became an activist. An article on him from Wikipedia states that Mr. Wen…
After his humiliating denial of a license to practice law in 1888, Alexander Wen turned to matrimony. The following year, he married Ye Eva Chan. A family living in Victoria had brought her over from Hong Kong and adopted her. Mr. Wen ended up becoming a court interpreter and labour contractor. From 1904 to 1936, he served as an interpreter in the Vancouver police court.
Alexander and Eva had a son Gordon who became the first Chinese notary public in Canada. On 6 October 1955, Alexander Wen Jin You passed away. He is regarded as the grandfather of the Canadian Chinese community. God be with him. May he rest in peace. April 22 How Canadian Are You?Being Canadian means many things. There are things we know that the rest of the world doesn't. For example, we know that, while Britain's Simon Scowell does his best to imitate Don Cherry, there can never be another Grapes. We know the truth of what really happened in Mogadishu, the incidents of which were covered up by the American press and completely altered in the film "Black Hawk Down". We know that there are more races in the world than just whites and blacks. We know what a chesterfield is. We know that health care, even more so than education, should be free and universal. We know that cultural diversity is better than assimilation and that conscription is unbecoming of those who claim to believe in liberty.
So, how Canadian are you? For each question below choose the best answer.
Part 1
1. London is a city in a) Ontario b) British Columbia c) Ireland
2. I prefer the… a) Honda Civic b) Toyota Camry
3. The word shone sounds like a) Shawn b) Shown c) Neither
4. The 'ou' in house and the 'ou' in loud sound a) Different b) The same
5. Chantal Kreviazuk is... a) A singer b) An actress c) A comedian
6. I own a hand gun a) No b) Yes
7. A former Prime Minister was a) Jean Chretien b) Jean Poutine c) Don't you mean President?
8. Football has … a) 3 downs b) 4 downs c) Beckham
9. I like to watch a) Hockey b) Baseball c) Soccer
10. Wearing an open ski jacket over a dress shirt and tie is a) Just fine, dude b) Odd c) Offensive!
11. Maple Syrup is… a) Better than chocolate b) As good as chocolate c) Terrible
12. Which of the following is possible? a) A toque sits on a chesterfield b) A chesterfield fits inside a toque c) A Zamboni fits inside a toque d) All of the above e) None of the above
Part 2
13. I drink … a) Coffee b) Tea c) Neither d) Both
14. I can… a) Swim b) Skate c) Ski d) All of the above
15. In addition to selling medicine, London Drugs … a) Develops photos b) Sells computers c) Sells appliances d) All of the above
16. The Royal Canadian Air Farce is a… a) Squadron of F-18 Hornets b) Joke about the Canadian air force c) Government Secret Service Agency d) Comedy troupe
17. Tim Horton's sells… a) Tools and Hardware b) Pizza c) Hockey Equipment d) Coffee and Doughnuts
18. Which of the following is true of Ron MacLean? a) He's a sportscaster who isn't respected b) He's blown out of the water by Don Cherry c) He's a singer who sings the blues d) He rocks but he isn't a rock star
19. I refer to the country south of the border as… a) America b) The U. S. of A c) Washington d) The States
20. "Iggy got a hat trick in last night's game" would be celebrated especially by… a) Vancouverites b) Torontonians c) Winnipeggers d) Calgarians
___________________
Scoring: For each answer (a) in Part 1, give yourself a point. For each answer (d) in Part 2, give yourself a point.
Results (/20):
0-4: Um, what planet are you from? 5-9: What country are you from? 10-14: You can be a friend of Canada and are welcome to sign our official guest book. 15-17: You're almost there, but not quite, buddy. 18-20: You're a real Canadian, eh! April 18 Gigi's Gift Chinese singer-actress Gigi Leung has released her 23rd original studio album, entitled Gift. It is her first studio album in over two years. This Mandarin album (which includes two Cantonese offerings) contains 14 tracks and is titled after the hit single "Gift", which was composed by none other than Gigi herself. I was fortunate enough to attend Gigi's concert in Shanghai a while back. It was wonderful. Gigi began her singing career back in 1996 and rose to superstardom a year later with her Mandarin hit "Short Hair". She is one of the few Chinese singers who composes music. She can play piano, guitar, and drums. In terms of her acting, Gigi starred opposite Jet Li in 1998's Hitman (a.k.a. Contract Killer) and Warner Bros.' Turn Left, Turn Right. Gigi also does modelling and last year participated in Ports' fashion show in New York. She loves animals and has served as Hong Kong spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. At the turn of the decade she travelled to Kenya, Africa to promote a wetlands conservation project. Gigi's own blog is here: www.gigiblog.com. If you can't read Chinese, them's the breaks, but you can, at least, enjoy the photos.
 April 12 Funerals Chinese StyleYesterday I attended my first Chinese funeral. Carolyn's youngest maternal aunt died of colon cancer last week. She was 53. What made it extra sad was that her daughter - Carolyn's cousin - didn't make it back to Shanghai in time to see her mom before she died.
As in the West, black is the colour of clothes to be worn but white is also acceptable. We first went to the aunt's home which was filled with flowers. A photo of the aunt was on the front hall table. As each guest entered he took three incense sticks, lit them from a candle, and, holding them in hand, protruding them forward, bowed three times before the photo. Chrysanthemum is the flower of choice for Chinese funerals. But other flowers can be used as long as they are yellow or white in colour. We greeted and expressed condolences to Nicki (Carolyn's cousin) and her dad.
What some may find comical and others offensive is that a big issue for Chinese in the death of the spouse (especially the wife) is that of bank account passwords. In Shanghai culture, usually the wife keeps in her own bank account all the family savings from both her and her husband's salary. I think it is a hassle for the husband to try to prove to the bank that his wife died and he is her husband, so that the bank can release the money for him, especially if she didn't write a will. Usually the easiest course of action is for the wife to give her husband her password before she dies, so he can just use her bank card to withdraw the money. Often the wife will refuse to give her husband the password, knowing and resenting the fact that he will remarry.
After spending an hour or so at the aunt's home, we all got on a rented bus to take us to the funeral home. We went into the funeral hall where they brought out the coffin. Not only do Chinese cry but they wail as well. We gathered around the coffin to see the aunt. We were each given a yellow flower and bowed three times before the coffin. Nicki read a eulogy and everyone cried throughout. A small ensemble played music as we all circled the coffin bowed three times and placed our yellow flower on the glass box surrounding it. Then the coffin was opened and the family covered the body with flowers and selected family members took turns nailing the coffin shut. It was then wheeled out by funeral staff. We were each given a gift of towels and chocolate. Carolyn later commented that one thing that is strange in Chinese culture is that chocolate is given out both at Chinese weddings as well as funerals. We got on the bus again to the crematorium. Cremation is the preferred choice in China. Beside the crematorium was a restaurant where we all had dinner together. After dinner we all went home. Apparently the immediate family of the aunt stayed back to receive her ashes. April 02 The Upside of DownProfessor Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto and authored a best-selling book called The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. He has spent much time assessing what is wrong with the world today, concluding that, in the final analysis, it is frightening.
During a conference in Toronto attended by 1,200 people from 16 countries, he said that five enormous pressures are bearing down on society: population growth disparities, fossil fuel energy scarcity, environmental catastrophes, global warming, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. These pressures, he said, are magnified by the interconnectedness of the earth's people and the increased capacity for destruction.
Homer-Dixon found in his investigations that people want to turn to the leadership of assumed experts in finance and science, thinking that someone at the top should know how to solve the problems. "But something tells us," he pointed out, "that the experts don't know what is going on". He said that all of us must become knowledgeable ourselves about the problems and find solutions rather than passively waiting for leaders to provide top-down strategies. "It is time for us to stop expecting others to take care of us—those knights on white horses," he said.
Stressing that surveys have shown that a significant number of American university students are ignorant of the fact that the earth revolves around the sun in a year, Homer-Dixon asked, "How can you have a conversation about climate change if you are talking to someone who does not know this?" He declared that knowledge is the key to our survival.
The Professor gives a pessimistic assessment of the world's crises but looks for hope in what he calls "catagenesis"—the "commonplace occurrence of renewal through breakdown", meaning that good will come from the collapse of civilization as we know it. |
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