A story from Shekki

[helen]

www.amazon.com/Concubines-Children-Denise-Chong/dp/0140254277#reader_0140254277 Concubines Children - A Canadian Family's Story by Denise Chong

Parts of the book can be viewed on line - use the surprise me part to get more pages. Page 16-18 decribes why Chan Sam left the country - the reasons why our own forebears would have left for Canada, Australia and NZ and other countires. A great read.

[douglaslam]

Fortunately for me, the book is available from my local council library and I had read it several years ago. The story also inspired me to visit Cheung Gar Bin on more than one occasion during my recent trips to China. The author's village. CGB is now completely unrecognisable even from the her visit back in the 1980s. I urge all members wanting to trace their ancestral homes; do it now, time is the essence.

It's about time I read the book again.

[helen]

Hi Douglas - I'm amazed that there are many books written that I have no idea about. I've just picked one up from a website Trademe "Chinese in Australia :lost soul and dragons: "Diana Giese. That was published in Australia years ago.

And you are right - people have to go now - the sooner the better. I saw a documentary yesterday : New Beijing - a look at what happens to Beijing's architecture legacy in the rush to modernise

The Hutongs have disappeared to make way for the Olympic Games documentaryedge.org.nz/2010/wgtn/film/new-beijing

english.peopledaily.com.cn/200603/03/eng20060303_247669.html

[douglaslam]

Helen, you're an excellent sales person. I went to the library today, amongst other things, I borrowed The Concubine's Children again. I can't resist it after reading just the foreword. It is only a small volume, it is manageable even for a slow reader like me. Reading it for the second time enforces my enjoyment. I urge other members to do so.

[helen]

Hi Douglas - The Auckland Libray had a copy - but it's missing. I'll have to try and locate a copy somewhere. I enjoyed reading what was on the website though.

here's a review by the Library

This superbly told saga of family loyalties and disaffections reads more like a novel than an actual chronicle of Chan Sam, a Chinese peasant who left his family in 1913 to seek his fortune in the ``Gold Mountain'' of western Canada. There, though always planning to return to them, he set up a second family with the beautiful, headstrong concubine he brought with him from China. The story is narrated in the third person by his granddaughter, a Canadian economist, who creates an unsentimental portrait of both families: of Huangbo, the patient ``home-wife'' who raised their son and the two children the concubine, May-ying, left behind, and survived the Japanese occupation of China and the rule of Mao Tse-tung; of May-ying, whose earnings as a waitress in west coast teahouses often supported the struggling Chan Sam, his family in China and her own two Canadian-born children. And we learn of the fate of all the children, especially May-ying's daughter Hing, the author's mother. Although Chan Sam never fulfilled his dream of returning to his home-family, after his death, Hing and the author made the pilgrimage to China to embrace the relatives they had never known.

[douglaslam]

Helen, I hope you can find a copy of the book from another library, or buy one online. It is a book worthy of owning. I might get my children to do it for me.

On my second reading, I am not yet up to the chapter in which the author gives a good description of the logging town Nanaimo. There used to be up to five or six Cantonese opera troupes at a time entertaining the Chinese population. That is incredible! The Cantonese loved their operas, it was an escape, relief from boredom and a time to socialise without discrimination.

I often wonder if my grandfather had ever worked in Nanaimo, and if he did, would he go to the opera ? I would love be able to go back in time to live amongst the old timers, and share their lot. It is a great pity the vibrant Chinatown was completely gutted in a fire.

[helen]

chinatown.mala.bc.ca/introduction.asp
www.viu.ca/history/nanaimo/chinese.htm


nanaimo-info.com/gpage2.html
The Nanaimo mine explosion on May 3, 1887, in Nanaimo, British Columbia killed 150 miners and was the largest man-made explosion in the world until the Halifax Explosion. Only seven miners survived and the mine burned for one full day.

The explosion started deep underground in the Number One Coal Mine, after explosives were laid improperly. Although many miners died instantly, others were trapped by the explosion. These men wrote farewell messages in the dust of their shovels. More than 150 children lost their fathers and 46 women became widows. A plaque at the foot of Milton Street commemorates the event.

Although past documents put the death toll at 148, researchers have since revised the number to 150, including 53 Chinese workers. Chinese workers were listed in the government inquest and annual report of the Minister of Mines as "Chinamen, names unknown", followed by a tag number. BC employers did not have to report the deaths of Chinese employees until 1897. Some accounts suggest that 48 of the 53 miners had the surname of Mah -- records may have been destroyed when Nanaimo's Chinatown burned to the ground in 1960. The monument on Milton Street lists the names of white miners, but only the tally number for Chinese miners.

At the time of the explosion, many white Nanaimoites blamed Chinese workers for the disaster, claiming the workers could not read signs or instructions. However, most miners–regardless of race–were illiterate.

[douglaslam]

It takes me almost three weeks to finish reading The Concubine's Children for the second time. It is only a small volume, but I can only read a few pages on the train and bus from work, or before I turn off the light in bed. The book is exactly what one of the reviewers described : "heartwrenching and ultimately uplifting."

It is sad in parts for the privation of the many protagonists in Canada and China. It is poignant in that we all can relay to or identify with many of the passages and chapters. The book touches on buying and selling paper identity. I, too, once tried to enter Canada in the late 1950s under similar circumstances. It touches on the ruthless brutality and destruction of Mao's policies after the initial euphoria, for which overseas families knew only too well.

There are passages fill me with pride for our forebears who withstood the discrimination with stoicism. They demonstrated what solidarity, mutual help was all about, and the clan associations fulfilled their role in providing comfort and help to their members. During the Great Depression, many Chinese died of starvation on the streets in Nanaimo and Vancouver before relief was extended to them, at half rate. Many people chose to starve rather than to have handout from the white society.

All this made me sound like a romantic old fool. I can't help but admire how the people pulled together to overcome overwhelming adversity. The book also fills in the knowledge void of my grandfather's times in BC.

My only brush with Vancouver's Chinatown was in Oct / Nov 1973. I was there to " snatch" my grandfather back to grandmother in Hong Kong. I think I was actually in one of the rooming houses in Chinatown, which featured so prominently in the book. It was operated by a fellow Chungshanese. It was so long ago, I could hardly remember whether grandfather and I spent one or two nights there while I finalised travel arrangements. I do remember it was a wooden building with timber partitions. There were many old men.

Back then, I did not appreciate the last vestiges of Vancouver's Chinatown. I did not asked to be taken to Keefer St., where grandfather had a share in a house, or other points of interest to me now. My responsibility was direct and simple: return grandfather home asap.

I do urge members to read this book. I am going to buy one online from Amazon with the help of my daughter.

[helen]

Thanks for the review Douglas - I must try to locate the book at the Library - my friend has ordered from another library, I'll tailgate her and borrow it before she has to return it.

[douglaslam]

Hi Helen, the book is a very good read. It was on he bestselling list for months as the promo states. It would certainly qualify as a page-turner, or unputdownable.