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Enriched by Chinese families

If you were raised in small town Alberta, or small town anywhere in Canada, I guess, then you know all about the subject of this book.

The Year of Finding Memory

By Judy Fong

Bates Random House Pub.

If you were raised in small town Alberta, or small town anywhere in Canada, I guess, then you know all about the subject of this book.

Remember the Chinese family in your town? They probably ran a Restaurant, or in some provinces, they ran laundries.

Always smiling, and friendly and good to the kids, but not really part of the community, because we never invited them.

This book brings it all back. Judy Fong Bates has taken this trip into the past to find out who her parents really were. Her father had first come to Canada in 1914, a young man of 21. He had paid the $500 head tax, required of Chinese immigrants at the time. He made several trips back to China, always hoping to stay there. When the Communists became dominant in China, after the war he knew that, though life was hard for him in Canada, it was a safe place for his family.

He returned in 1950, Judy and her mother followed in 1953.

Judy remembers the life of hard work that her parents lived, day and night working in their hand-laundry. They had no days off and nothing nice in their house or their lives. Neither learned to speak English, so as Judy grew up, she became their spokesman.

She loved Canada and everything Canadian. She did well in School, had many friends, and tried to hide the shame she felt for her poor parents. This was her fathers second marriage, and he was old enough to be her grandfather.

In 2006 Judy’s older half brothers, who had also immigrated, suggested a trip home to China, for all of them, including Judy’s Caucasian husband. She digs into the boxes left by her parents, looking at pictures, to “study-up” for her trip.

She planned to tag-along on a trip that would be, mostly, for her brothers. Her discoveries led to this beautiful reunion with her past.

In China, the family were living a hard life under Communism. They kept in touch with letters and had been kept from starvation by the laundryman’s gifts of money, mailed faithfully week by week.

Judy’s family were from South China, (the Four Counties), and Judy spoke Sze Yup, the common dialect. Their first stop was a visit to Ning Kai Lee, the families ancestral village.

The arrival of she and her husband, is a 10-day wonder to the villagers, who had seen “lo fons” (Westerners) on TV but not in real life.

Here they meet many family members, aunts, uncles and cousins, all anxious to remind her of stories of her mother and father. Though the villages they visit are poor, they treat the visitors very well.

Most of us have come from immigrant stock. Here is a wonderful story of one family who made Canada their home. We have been enriched by our Chinese families, and this book ads greatly to our understanding of them.

Peggy Freeman is a freelance writer living in Red Deer.