Chinese Canadian |

Western-Chinese food is authentic — and isn’t white washing our culture

by Kathryn Mannie, CBC, Jun 22, 2021

Dismissing this cuisine also dismisses the legacy of chefs like my grandparents.

“Sik jor fahn mei ah? Have you eaten yet?”

This common Cantonese greeting indicates just how closely Chinese culture associates food and well-being. My gung gung (maternal grandfather) fiercely proclaims that food and money are the two most important things to possess — in that order.

Like many second- and third-generation Chinese-Canadians, I was partially raised by my grandparents while my parents worked full time.

And at the centre of their home was the kitchen. Read more…

Though we can’t gather at our usual dim sum restaurant anymore, my family still gets together every Sunday around noon to share a meal. I join in virtually when I’m in Toronto. (Kathryn Mannie)

Guo Ding: Chinese Canadian Museum will counter flawed narratives about B.C. and Canadian history

by Guo Ding, August 2nd, 2020, The Georgia Straight

Last month, the B.C. government announced $10 million in funding for the Chinese Canadian Museum project.

This marks the first time that a North American government has supported such a project. And $10 million is only the beginning.

This shows that Premier John Hogan is a leader who fulfils his campaign promises.

I still remember when I wrote an article in Sing Tao Daily on May 1, 2017, suggesting that B.C. should build a Chinese Canadian history museum to identify the contributions of the Chinese community since 1860. The next day, I received a phone call from NDP headquarters, telling me that the party leader, Horgan, endorsed my idea. read more…

Blame, bullying and disrespect: Chinese Canadians reveal their experiences with racism during COVID-19

Angus Reid Institute, June 22, 2020

It has been referred to as the “shadow pandemic” in Canada. As COVID-19 indiscriminately touches people in large communities and small households, it has brought another kind of virus – one that does discriminate – to the doorsteps of only some Canadians.

That virus is racism. Across the country, assaults, verbal threats, graffiti and worse – all directed at people of Chinese (and other East Asian) descent – have been reported since the pandemic was declared.

Now, in the first study of its kind since the pandemic was declared, new data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute in partnership with the University of Alberta reveals the experiences and emotions of those directly affected.

Results from this survey of more than 500 Canadians of Chinese ethnicity underscore the extent and depth to which they have been exposed to discriminatory behaviours, and the effect on their own sense of self and belonging in this country. Read more…

Wayson Choy, 80, Whose Books Are Windows on Chinese-Canadian Life, Dies

Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, May 3, 2019

Wayson Choy, who wrote of the Chinese-Canadian experience in memoirs and novels like “The Jade Peony,” which became a mainstay in Canadian classrooms and led to a revelation about the writer’s own past, died on April 28 at his home in Toronto. He was 80.

Denise Bukowski, Mr. Choy’s agent, said the cause was a heart attack brought on by an asthma attack. He had nearly died from heart attacks related to asthma in the past, episodes he wrote about in “Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying” (2009).

“The Jade Peony,” his debut novel, published in 1995, when he was 56, was one of the first to detail life in a Chinese-Canadian community. It follows a Chinese immigrant family in Vancouver in the 1930s and ’40s as they struggle to make a home in a sometimes hostile country, drawing what support they can from shared traditions, community and folklore. Read more…

“The Jade Peony,” published in 1995, was one of the first to detail the Chinese immigrant experience in Canada. It has become a mainstay in Canadian classrooms.CreditDouglas and McIntyre

Luck, love, life: Beloved author Wayson Choy had always lived to perfect his stories, again and again

ANTANAS SILEIKA, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, APRIL 30, 2019

Wayson Choy and I were both English teachers at Humber College in Toronto when he published his first book, The Jade Peony, in 1995. He was 56 at the time, a late-breaking author. I had published my own first book the year before and I said to him over lunch in the staff dining room, “Enjoy the attention, Wayson. It doesn’t last.”

The book, about a gay boy growing up in Vancouver’s Chinatown of the thirties and forties, went on to be a bestseller for 26 weeks and shared a Trillium Award with Margaret Atwood. If Chinatown was practically invisible in the Canadian consciousness at the time, a gay boy in such a setting was a revelation of a reality too long ignored. He later received many more honours, including a Giller nomination and the Order of Canada. Read more…

Author Wayson Choy in the Random House Publishing office on April 1, 2009. JENNIFER ROBERTS/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Calgarian Larry Kwong, first Chinese-Canadian player in NHL, dies at age 94

ZACH LAING, March 19, 2018

A trail-blazing athlete known as “King Kwong” to his followers, Larry Kwong broke barriers as the first person of Chinese heritage to play in the National Hockey League.

Kwong died in his Calgary home last Thursday, according to his family. He was 94.

He played his first and only NHL game with the New York Rangers on March 13, 1948, against the Montreal Canadiens at the Forum — although Kwong wasn’t given much more than a minute on the ice. Read more…

Larry Kwong, who played in one NHL game for the New York Rangers in 1948, died at his Calgary home on March 15, 2018. He was 94 years old. SUPPLIED

Vancouver council to apologize for historical discrimination against Chinese

Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier, MARCH 22, 2018

City council will hold a special meeting April 22 in Chinatown to make a formal apology to Chinese people for the legislated discrimination enacted decades ago by previous city councils.

The event at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver comes after the 11-member council agreed unanimously in November 2017 to hold a ceremony to condemn the racist policies of city leaders in power between 1886 and 1947.

Banning voting rights, not allowing Chinese people to run for public office and lobbying for a head tax were among such policies. Read more…

Vancouver city council has set April 22 as the date it will formally apologize to the Chinese community for previous councils’ legislated discrimination against Chinese people. Photo City of Vancouver Archives Bu N158.2