Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community
Dec 2009 · D & M Publishers
Ebook
208
Pages
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About this ebook
Saltwater City pays tribute to those who went through the hard times, to those who swallowed their pride, to those who were powerless and humiliated, but who still carried on. They all had faith that things would be better for future generations. They have been proven correct.
Canada’s first Chinese arrived in British Columbia in 1858 from California. Almost all mee—merchants, peasants, and laborers — and almost all from eight rural counties in the Pearl River delta in what is now Guangdong province — they came in search of gold and better fortune, escaping the rebellions, flood and drought of their homeland.
By 1863 over 4,000 Chinese lived in B.C., filling jobs shunned by whites: miners, road builders, teamsters, laundry men, restaurateurs, domestic servants and cannery workers. Between 1881 and 1885, thousands more arrived, most imported to build the transcontinental railway. They were to create, in Vancouver, Canada’s largest and most dynamic Chinese Community, known to its original inhabitants as Saltwater City.
Canada’s first Chinese arrived in British Columbia in 1858 from California. Almost all mee—merchants, peasants, and laborers — and almost all from eight rural counties in the Pearl River delta in what is now Guangdong province — they came in search of gold and better fortune, escaping the rebellions, flood and drought of their homeland.
By 1863 over 4,000 Chinese lived in B.C., filling jobs shunned by whites: miners, road builders, teamsters, laundry men, restaurateurs, domestic servants and cannery workers. Between 1881 and 1885, thousands more arrived, most imported to build the transcontinental railway. They were to create, in Vancouver, Canada’s largest and most dynamic Chinese Community, known to its original inhabitants as Saltwater City.
About the author
Paul Yee is a third-generation Chinese Canadian. Born in Spalding, Saskatchewan, in 1956, he grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown, where he had a “typical Chinese-Canadian childhood, caught between two worlds, and yearning to move away from the neighbourhood.” He attended the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia, receiving a Master of the Arts degree in history from the latter in 1983, and has since taught in British Columbia schools; at Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia; in the Vancouver Museum, and for the Chinese Community Library Services Society in Vancouver. He has written and published widely, including two young adult novels, Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter and The Curses of Third Uncle (winner of an Honourable Mention for the 1986 Canada Council Literature Prizes). From 1985 to 1987, Yee served as Chairman of the Saltwater City Exhibition Committee of the Chinese Cultural Centre, and it is out of this work that a major show, a television special, and subsequently this book grew.
By profession an archivist, Yee worked for the Vancouver City Archives before moving to Toronto in 1988 to become Multicultural Coordinator for the Archives of Canada.
By profession an archivist, Yee worked for the Vancouver City Archives before moving to Toronto in 1988 to become Multicultural Coordinator for the Archives of Canada.
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