To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

Travelling Women
Ed. Momoye Sugiman
Jin Guo - Voices of Chinese Canadian Women.
Chinese Canadian National Council n.p.
Eds. Roseann Lloyd and Deborah Keenan
Looking for Home : Women Writing About Exile.
Milkweed Editions US$11.95
Reviewed by Maria Noëlle Ng
The first Chinese woman immigrant
arrived in Victoria, British Columbia in
i860. The first Chinese child was born in
Canada in 1861. These are some of the historical
statistics one can learn from Jin Guo,
an anthology of biographical and autobiographical
writings of Canadian women of
Chinese descent. The editorial committee
interviewed about 130 women for the project,
and one can easily imagine the sheer
amount of material they had to deal with.
The wealth of informants and information
contributes to the rich texture of the
anthology; unfortunately, this texture
sometimes lacks definition.
The book is structured into two parts.
The first part is a series of self-contained
individual stories; the second part are anecdotal
accounts grouped under themes such
as 'work', 'education', 'interracial relationships'.
There are contributors who were
born in China, or Hong Kong, and there are
also those who were Canadians by birth.
The oldest woman interviewed is Margaret
Chan, born 1902. Although the youngest
interviewee was born in 1962, the age
emphasis is more towards those who are in
their 40s or older.
Naturally enough, the individual stories
not only bear historical significance, but are
also moving testimonies to women who were
pioneers in their own rights. For instance,
Margaret Chan immigrated to Canada in
1910 and attended public schools in Victoria.
She wanted to become a teacher. In spite of
her diploma, she could not get a job teaching
because she was Chinese, and worked
for many years in various produce stores.
She went back to China and Hong Kong,
looking for work, then came back to Canada
and married. Margaret Chan spent most of
her married life following her husband to
various parts of Canada where jobs were
available. Her husband was an abusive and
callous man, and Margaret worked as well
as brought up the children without the
husband's help.
This pattern of drudgery was sadly
repeated in variations by a succession of
women who came to Canada without sufficient
education to prepare them for a hostile,
racially unenlightened society, where
Chinese were despised, called names and
barred from any kind of profession. Community
support groups were far and few
between. These early women immigrants
also had to endure a kind of geographically-transposed
patriarchalism within the
Chinese community, where the men had all
the privileges and the women were treated
no better than commodities on a shelf. Not
surprisingly, the father-figure plays a comparatively
minor role in the anthology.
Most women remember their mothers
fondly; some express ambiguous and even
critical views of their fathers and husbands.
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