He hated being Chinese. Now he's Chinatown's biggest champi

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He hated being Chinese. Now he's Chinatown's biggest champion.
Brielle Morgan - January 30, 2015


Spend an afternoon on Pender Street with Larry Wong and you’ll never look at Vancouver’s Chinatown the same way again.

I met the salt-and-pepper-haired community historian at the New Town café, a hard-to-miss restaurant with a giant steam bun on its awning. Larry swears New Town has the best egg tarts in Vancouver. As I scraped the last bit of flaky tart shell off my plate I was hard-pressed to disagree. They are objectively good.


“For a very long time, particularly in my teens, I hated being Chinese,” he told me. “Growing up as a member of a minority group in a Caucasian world was overwhelming.”

Larry was born on Pender Street in 1938. At the time, B.C. was in many ways a hostile place for Chinese Canadians. The racist “head tax” that targeted them had only recently been abolished (1923). And they had yet to win back the right to vote or hold public office – rights denied them at Confederation, rights they won back in 1947.

Once ashamed of his culture, Larry’s since become a voracious chronicler – and celebrator – of Chinese Canadian stories. In addition to co-founding the Chinese Canadian Historical Society and writing a book about his childhood in Chinatown, he volunteers much of his time to community work.

“It wasn't until I matured that I began to appreciate my heritage. I regretted ignoring the Chinese language but I made up for it by learning as much as I can about the history of my family and of Chinatown and of China.”


www.knowledge.ca/blog/2015/01/30/he-hated-being-chinese-now-hes-chinatowns-biggest-champion