How Events of the 1850s, 1880s, and 1990s Show Up in Canada Today
Back in the 1990s, when I was 15, I told two of my friends (both Chinese-Canadian) that I wanted to learn Cantonese. One friend’s mother-tongue was Mandarin as she was born in Sichuan province in China, and the other’s were Cantonese and English because she was born here in Canada but her family spoke Cantonese at home. To my great surprise, they both spontaneously replied to me, in unison, “Don’t learn Cantonese!”
I was so confused! I had even been secretly a little envious of my aforementioned Cantonese-speaking friend when, during our elementary school years, after we were done our day at English-speaking public school, she would “get to” go and learn to write Chinese characters in that amazing looking building in Chinatown, the Victoria Chinese Public School. (Nowadays I just marvel at how much more work she had to do than I did! I still have never seen inside that building but I hope to someday. I’ll update you all if I ever get the chance.) At the time of our conversation, I knew that Mandarin and Cantonese were languages under the “Chinese language” umbrella but until that moment (in the very early days of Internet access in homes) I did not know that Mandarin was actually the national dialect of China and that if I was interested in Chinese culture and history, it made way more sense to learn it instead of Cantonese. All my life to that point the Chinese I had heard around me had been Cantonese, so naturally I had thought Cantonese was the one I should learn. The Chinese-Canadian community in my area was historically built up by people coming mainly from Guangdong province (previously known in the English-speaking world as Canton) which was due in large part to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1881-1885) and the BC Gold Rushes (between 1858 and 1863), and so Cantonese became the predominant Chinese dialect where I am from. Still, I find it kind of quaint that I had lived my younger years thinking the words Chinese and Cantonese were interchangeable.
After that conversation, my path to learning Mandarin began in earnest. Because my junior high did not offer Mandarin classes, I had to wait until the following year where I could take Mandarin in high school. So in the meantime, my first foray into Mandarin was to listen to music. My Cantonese-speaking friend burned some CDs for me (remember those?!) and I would listen to Chinese pop music, trying to tell the difference between the Cantonese songs and the Mandarin songs. I honestly think listening to music is an excellent entry-point to getting started from nothing in order to develop your ear and attune it to the sound of Mandarin words and pronunciation, even though one does not use the speaking tones when singing. I got very good at telling which songs were in which language within the first few seconds of a song. [This also started my lifelong love of 王菲 (Wang Fei), a.k.a. Faye Wong whose very slight yodel in her singing voice is reminiscent of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan, another 1990s icon. In fact, she covered their song “Dreams” in 1994. Compared to her counterparts, 王菲 was really ahead of her time.]
Also in the 1990’s, as I embarked on my Mandarin-learning journey, it just so happened that Canada actually started celebrating Asian Heritage Month (officially designated to recur in May starting in 2002). According to Statistics Canada, it is, “...an opportunity for all Canadians to reflect on and learn more about the many achievements and contributions that Canadians of Asian heritage have made and continue to make across the country.” I think Asian Heritage Month is important, especially these days. People ignorant of our country’s history can make snap judgments that you must be a foreigner and/or that you don’t “deserve” to be here if your first language isn’t English or French. I have always found it painfully ironic that when it comes to Chinese-Canadians (and other groups, of course), there are so many cases in which the roots of their family trees likely reach back further and deeper into Canada’s history than those of a person with that type of prejudiced or racist point of view (not to mention the irony around that view vis-à-vis colonization). I know my family, for one, came years after the BC Gold Rushes or the CPR was built, and I am just a 3rd generation Canadian across the board, yet no one would question that I am Canadian because of what I look like and how I sound.
One way in which Asian Heritage Month serves the general public is to make us aware of the many unsung, or at least under-sung, heroes in Canada’s history whose mother-tongues were Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and so on. Although this event isn’t specifically for Asian Heritage Month, I am excited to learn more about our local history by heading down to Fan Tan Alley in Chinatown to visit, as the Chinese Canadian Museum website describes, “'First Steps: Chinese Canadian Journeys in Victoria', a new temporary exhibition that highlights important starting points for Chinese Canadians in Victoria. Examples of intergenerational resilience and agency are shared through stories of community support, entrepreneurship, and personal accomplishment.” That exhibit is produced by the Chinese Canadian Museum, in cooperation with the Victoria Chinatown Museum Society and there is a second one produced by the Royal BC Museum in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of History called “Gold Mountain Dream!”. It is an “...exhibition which examines the personal stories and sacrifices of early Chinese migrant workers who came to British Columbia in search of prosperity during the Fraser Valley Gold Rush in the 1850s." Part of why I am excited to delve into this event is because it’s directly related to a book I read while I was earning my bachelor’s degree, called The Excluded Wife, by Dr. Yuen-Fong Woon, who was one of my favourite professors. The book is, “An epic story of a Chinese woman's struggle against discrimination and persecution set against the backdrop of Chinese and Canadian history.” I got one of the best grades for any paper I did during university on my essay about that book, but my grade didn’t make it one of my favourite books, it’s the other way around; I did well on my report because it is legitimately, hands-down one of my favourite books of all-time. (I wish I still had my original copy…too many moves in my life I think made it disappear!)
The museum event started March 4, 2023 and is running until September 30, 2023. One of the cool things about the exhibits is that the signage is in English, Traditional Chinese characters, and Simplified Chinese. I plan to challenge myself by getting out my Pleco Chinese Dictionary app and seeing if I can read the Chinese on the signs before checking the English! Showing up in spaces like museums is an aweome short-cut to simulating a language-immersion environment for yourself to accelerate your language learning. Apparently our cruise ship terminal in Victoria BC could see a record-breaking number of cruise ships arrive between April and October as it is estimated that there will be 330 ships coming, bringing with them an estimated 850,000 passengers. Chinatown is a major draw for tourists to Victoria, but not even every local knows about the museum in Fan Tan Alley. I hope locals and visitors will make their way there this summer too - it’s by donation, so anyone can go!
I love living in a place that celebrates our history - or is at least starting to recognise it. It hasn't always been that way, and, in a lot of respects we have a long way to go, but events like this one in Fan Tan Alley feel like progress. I would love to hear about a cultural event - whether from your own background or similarly integral to where you live - that gets you excited. Tag us on social media or email hello@littlecrabpress.ca to share your story.
Happy Spring,
Rebecca