AS A CHILD growing up in Prince George, British Columbia, author Denise Chong had always suspected that she might have relatives in China. The missing pieces to the puzzle of her maternal family history were finally provided during a visit to Chang Gar Bin, China, in 1987, when her mother met her sister and half-brother for the first time.
This long-awaited title provides a gripping story of a family divided between the war-torn China of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, and the insular Chinatowns of Canada. It is the story of May-ying, a girl of exceptional beauty who, at the age of seventeen, was shocked to learn that she had been sold as a concubine to Chan Sam, who had journeyed to North America -- Gold Mountain -- with a dream of earning enough money to improve the life of his family back home. This woman -- tragically married to a man she did not love and consigned to a life of labour in a country she did not know -- was Chong's maternal grandmother.
It also reveals the story of Huangbo, Chan Sam's first wife, who patiently endured the hardships of a peasant's existence in war-torn China, left to raise May-ying's two daughters as well as her own deformed son in the poor village of her husband's birth.
Though Chan Sam's efforts in Canada would be responsible for building his family in China a beautiful western-style house, his family would ironically suffer hardship and abuse from the authorities sent to implement Mao Zedong's disastrous land reform policy.
Meanwhile, Chong's mother, Hing -- the youngest daughter to May-ying and Chan Sam, would be raised in Canada, a sea away from her two older sisters, leading a life of poverty, neglect, and heartbreaking loneliness in the Chinatowns of western Canada.
A fascinating family history that spans over half a century, stretching from a small peasant village in the south of China to the Chinatowns of British Columbia. Chong presents a sweeping and emotionally gripping portrait of her remarkable family -- a family reunited after half a century of separation across continental and cultural divides.

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DISAPPEARING Moon Cafe is a restaurant owned by the Wong family in Vancouver's Chinatown. In this extraordinary first novel, the saga of the Wongs unfolds through four generations, beginning with Wong Gwei Chang in 1892. The story focusses on the lives and passionate loves of the women of the Wong family, whose past sins and inborn strengths are passed on from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Moving back and forth between past and present, between Canada and China, Lee weaves fiction and historical fact into a memorable and moving picture of a people's struggle for identity.
Winner of the Vancouver Book Award for 1990 and a finalist for both the Governor General's Award and the BC Book Prize.
Narrative, descriptive, and beautifully written: to date, the quintessential Chinese Canadian novel.

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"The Chinese expression 'many-mouthed birds' is used to describe someone who talks too much," the editors explain in the introduction. The writers in this anthology are 'many-mouthed birds' because they are breaking a long and often self-imposed silence.

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IN VANCOUVER in 1932, life is an uphill battle for eighteen-year old Kwok-ken Wong. When he's not slogging through chores on his family's struggling farm, he's studying hard to try and win a university soccer scholarship. The scholarship, he desperately hopes, will be his ticket away from his father's constant criticism, the poverty and hardship of farm life, and from the Chinese community that he doesn't feel he really belongs to. But trying to make his way in a white person's world where racism has a strong grip has him wondering if a young Chinese man, no matter how gifted, can make a life for himself.
Dedicated to the celebrated Vancouver Chinese Students Soccer Club that dominated the game in the 1920s and 1930s, Paul Yee's hard hitting novel tells a story that is still timely and true today.

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This book 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.

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THIS COLLECTION, by noted historian and children's author Paul Yee, is based on the tumultuous and brave history of the Chinese immigrants to Canada. Drawing on the real background of the Chinese role in the Gold Rush, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the settling of the west coast in the nineteenth century, Yee has created eight original stories that combine the rough-and-tumble adventure of frontier life with the rich folk traditions that these immigrants brought from China.
Accompanied by stunning and dramatic paintings by award-winning illustrator Simon Ng, this collection will remind Canadians of the important role the Chinese have played in the history of this country.

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FROM SUZETTE CHAN REVIEW IN CHINACITY: This collection of oral histories reminds us that while Chinese women immigrated to Canada in small numbers until the 1960s, their history in Canada extends past the turn of the century. Through those years, some endured great hardship, isolation, racism, destitution and, within their own families, patriarchal oppression. But theirs are also stories of open-minded non-Chinese and liberal expatriates, of financial and professional success, both modest and great, and of independence and great joy.

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A COLLECTION of interviews with twenty Chinese Canadians. They include lawyers, businesspeople, publishers, journalists, geneticists, biologists, musicians, actors, television producers, designers, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and a distinguished elder who is 101 years old.
Book purports to introduce the reader to Chinese Canadians and provide insights into an ancient culture: editor selects a Confucian analect to describe each individual in the book. These ancient sayings are presented in traditional Chinese calligraphy with English translations. "Extensive research entailed reading every book available that had anything to do with Chinese people in Canada," claims the book's press release.

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FRESH GIRLS marks the fiction debut for Evelyn Lau. A collection of short stories telling the experiences of a variety of "fresh girls" whose sexual forays cross the paths of anticipation, desire and commerce. The prose is sparse and provocative. Written with insight into the human psyche by the youngest person to have ever been nominated for a Governor General's Award.

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• Assassination of D'Arcy McGee by Patrick James Whelan (1868)
• Treason: The Unique Case of Louis Riel (1885)
• Eight-Year Old Murderer: Ernest Chenoweth (1900)
• Hunting, Stealing and Murder: Wilbert Coffin (1953)
• Adolescent Rape-Murder: Steven Truscott (1959)
• Passion, Intrigue and Murder: Peter Demeter (1974)

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BENEATH THE BEAUTY is Arima's first collection of poetry. His work is gritty and rhythmic, passionate and uncompromising. His poetry verges on prose because of a desire to tell the stories of real life.
His writing reveals themes like love, life on the street and addiction. Arima has a terrifying clarity of vision in his portrayal of contemporary life. Despite the cruelties inflicted and endured by his characters, he is able to find a compassionate element even in the bleakest of circumstances.
Arima has a similar sense of place and aesthetic as Charles Bukowski, but there is a sense of hope and dark romanticism throughout his work. Phlip Arima is a powerful poet and storyteller, and his writing is not for the faint of heart.

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From China to Canada:
A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada

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Moon Cakes in Gold Mountain:
From China to the Canadian Plains

Read the book review reprinted from the Edmonton Journal by Kenda D Gee.

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Gold Mountain

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The Chinese

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Dragon & the Maple Leaf: Chinese Canadians in World War II

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Canadians Behind Enemy Lines:
1939-1945

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Inalienable Rice:
A Chinese & Japanese Canadian Anthology

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Yellow Peril Reconsidered

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Self Not Whole:
Cultural Identity & Chinese-Canadian Artists in Vancouver

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I Feel Japan

CONTEMPORARY Japan is far different from its image in the popular media. Discover a modern society as its people know it.
Among other features, this resourceful booklet includes a calendar of Japanese festivals, an exploration of Japanese pop culture, a survey of the education system, and a list of addresses for obtaining further information.

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