Chop Suey Nation Read online

  The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants

  Copyright © 2019 Ann Hui

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [email protected].

  Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

  P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

  www.douglas-mcintyre.com

  All photos courtesy of Ann Hui/The Globe and Mail except where otherwise noted.

  Edited by Nicola Goshulak

  Cover and text design by Diane Robertson

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on paper made from 100% post-consumer waste

  Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

  Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

  We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Hui, Ann, 1983-, author

  Chop suey nation : the Legion Cafe and other stories from Canada’s Chinese restaurants / Ann Hui.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77162-222-6 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77162-223-3 (HTML)

  1. Chinese restaurants--Canada. 2. Cooking, Chinese. 3. Cooking, Canadian. 4. Food habits--Canada. I. Title.

  TX945.4.H85 2019647.9571C2018-906139-1

  C2018-906140-5

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note 11

  Introduction 13

  Chapter One

  Victoria, BC. Spring 2016 19

  Chapter Two

  Burnaby, BC. Summer 2016 33

  Chapter Three

  Vulcan, AB. Spring 2016 45

  Chapter Four

  Jingweicun, Guangdong, China. 1924–52 63

  Chapter Five

  Drumheller, AB. Spring 2016 69

  Chapter Six

  Jingweicun, Guangdong, China. 1952–60 81

  Chapter Seven

  Stony Plain, AB. Spring 2016 87

  Chapter Eight

  Guangzhou, China. 1961–65 93

  Chapter Nine

  Boissevain, MB. Spring 2016 99

  Chapter Ten

  Guangzhou, China. 1966–74 109

  Chapter Eleven

  Thunder Bay, ON. Spring 2016 119

  Chapter Twelve

  Hong Kong–Vancouver, BC. 1974 129

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nackawic, NB. Spring 2016 143

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vancouver, BC. 1974–75 151

  Chapter Fifteen

  Moncton, NB. Spring 2016 159

  Chapter Sixteen

  Abbotsford, BC. 1976–77 163

  Chapter Seventeen

  Glace Bay, NS. Spring 2016 173

  Chapter Eighteen

  Abbotsford, BC. 1977 185

  Chapter Nineteen

  Deer Lake, NL. Spring 2016 193

  Chapter Twenty

  Abbotsford, BC. 1977–84 207

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fogo Island, NL. Spring 2016 225

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Burnaby, BC. December 2016 243

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Toronto, ON. January 2017 255

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Burnaby, BC. March 2017 267

  Acknowledgements 283

  Select Bibliography 286

  Photos i

  Author’s Note

  This book is based on interviews and many of the events described have been reconstructed from memories of what took place decades ago. I have attempted to be as accurate as possible in compiling these memories. But as with all family histories, this one is messy, and it is possible that some of the details may have been misremembered. Also, for the sake of consistency, for people living in Canada, I have followed Canadian usage in writing their given name preceding their surname.

  Introduction

  Until the year I turned nine, my family lived in the house across the street from our school. On one side of Franklin Street was the beige building where we attended classes. And on the other side was the white stucco house where we grew up.

  When the bell rang at noon each day, while everyone else ran off to the cafeteria or playground, my sisters and I went home for lunch. The three of us would walk across the street to find Mom cooking, usually fried noodles or fried rice. We’d walk in to see her cracking eggs and mixing them up with a pair of chopsticks for the fried rice. Into the wok she’d drop cold rice from the night before. Then she’d cut up some green onions and throw those in too. I hated green onions.

  I was jealous of my friends who got to stay at school for lunch. I was jealous of their brightly coloured lunch boxes covered with cartoons and Disney princesses, and the fact that they got to eat lunch together. If they ate quickly, they could call dibs on the best swings and slides and have plenty of time on the playground. At home, Mom kept a stern eye on us as we ate. No one was allowed out the door and back to the playground until she could see the bottom of our bowls.

  I was jealous of what was inside my friends’ lunch boxes too. They ate the same things as the characters in our favourite TV shows: neatly wrapped bologna and cheese sandwiches. Tupperware containers filled with SpaghettiOs or tomato soup. Little plastic packets filled with Fruit Roll-Ups or Minigo. It was the food they sold at Safeway and advertised in cartoon commercials. Normal food.

  The food we ate at home was something different. It was the same kind of different I felt when the white girls in class had sleepover parties, and I’d lie and say my family and I were out of town. Chinese families didn’t do sleepovers.

  It was the same kind of different I felt when friends would talk about Saturday morning cartoons. I’d nod along knowingly as if I knew my Darkwing Duck from my DuckTales. In reality, I was at Chinese school every Saturday morning, practising dictation and learning classical Chinese poetry.

  One day in third grade, a girl in my class, Cherie, turned to me on the playground after I came back from lunch. “What’d you eat?” she asked. Cherie was my friend but I was intimidated by her. She was Chinese too. But I’d never seen her at Chinese school. I’d never seen her eating slimy noodles with pickled vegetables, or the soy-marinated duck wings I loved even though some of the hairs were often still poking out. Cherie ate sandwiches and wore sweatshirts with the real, licenced Care Bears and Fido Dido images on them. She didn’t wear the knock-off stuff that relatives brought back to Vancouver in suitcases from Hong Kong, the way we did. I imagined her parents spoke perfect, fluent English.

  I froze, feeling like I’d been caught. Like most days, we’d had fried rice with leftovers.

  “Sandwiches,” I lied. My face felt hot as I turned away, hoping she wouldn’t ask anything more.

  Making matters worse, our lunches weren’t very good. Mom wasn’t a good cook. She thought nothing of mixing together leftovers that had no business being mixed together. She would throw together whatever was in the refrigerator: preserved salted vegetables—pickled and salty and straight from the can—with black-bean and garlic sp
areribs from the night before. Or add cold cuts Dad brought home from work into fried rice with dried oysters.

  She just didn’t care very much. Between working nights at the post office and taking care of the three of us—shuttling us around to our piano lessons, swimming classes and kung fu competitions—putting meals on the table was just another thing to check off the list. Food, to her, was simply a necessity. Flavour and pleasure were luxuries she didn’t have time for.

  Pansy and Amber, my older sisters, were less picky. Most days, they would gobble up their lunches and run out the door before I was even halfway through. (Other times, Amber, who is two years older and more shrewd, would stuff little grains of rice wherever she could think to, most often the porous edge of the table. Every so often, Mom would watch, bewildered, as the dried grains fell from the table’s edge, hitting the floor like raindrops.)

  That would leave me by myself, drawing shapes and circles on the bottom of my bowl with the tips of my chopsticks. I’d gaze longingly toward the school playground, watching my sisters and my friends running around.

  Whining never helped. I knew from experience what would happen if I complained, the look Mom would give me, the flash of anger in her eyes and the words that would soon follow: “Lup lup gay sun foo.”

  Each and every single grain, from hardship comes.

  * * *

  Still, there was one day of the year when we were allowed to stay at school for lunch: Chinese New Year. Our school cafeteria didn’t have a daily meal program, but once a month students could order a special item that was delivered straight to the cafeteria. There was Pizza Day, Hamburger Day and Taco Day. And every year, sometime in January or February, there was Chinese Day, to celebrate Chinese New Year. On that day and only that day, Mom made an exception and allowed us to stay at school. “The school is honouring our culture,” she said. “It’s a chance to celebrate our heritage.”

  The first Chinese lunch I can remember, I was about six. I had looked forward to this day for weeks. Finally, I could stay at school like everyone else. I could eat in the cafeteria like everyone else. And my food would be the same as everyone else’s.

  That afternoon, when the bell rang for lunch, I rushed to the cafeteria, my heart beating with anticipation. For once, my food was the kind kids were getting excited about. For that one day at least, my lunch would be normal. As I stood in line at the cafeteria, I imagined the meal they’d have waiting for us. There would be fish, surely—every Chinese New Year meal had fish. I could explain to my friends what Mom had told us, how the word for “fish” in Cantonese was a homophone for “excess” or “wealth.” It was lucky.

  There would be chicken too, probably with the head still on. A whole chicken for Chinese New Year represented wholeness—a good beginning and end for the entire year. And dense, waxy leen goh, New Year’s cake made of glutinous rice flour and brown sugar. Once cooked, it was wobbly and stuck to our teeth, nothing like the cake we ate at birthdays. This one might scare my friends. But it was one of my favourites, oily from the egg batter Dad fried it in and sweet. Once my friends tried it, I knew they would like it.

  The line trudged on until finally it was my turn. The cafeteria worker passed me my plate and I looked down. There was no fish or chicken or leen goh—none of the Chinese New Year dishes I knew.

  I barely recognized anything on the plate. There were noodles stained dark with soy sauce, limp-looking and glistening with oil. There was nothing mixed in with them except a few pallid bean sprouts. Next to the noodles was some kind of meat, deep-fried with a crunchy exterior and slicked in a fire truck–red sauce. I dipped my finger into the sauce and licked it. It tasted like the red Sugus candies Po Po, my grandmother, kept in a tin above the refrigerator.

  None of these foods looked like anything we ate at home. As my friends buzzed around, laughing and shrieking, I could only sit there, baffled. The banner in the cafeteria called this “Chinese” lunch. The school had called it “Chinese” too. So why had I never seen it before? Whose “Chinese” food was this?

  Those first few bites, I realized much later, were my introduction to Chinese-Canadian, or “chop suey,” cuisine. For years after, I would hear relatives, including Mom and Dad, belittle this as “fake” Chinese. They would tell me that I should only want the authentic stuff. I would hear that this was food invented to “trick” Westerners. That it was cheap, or poor quality. That the flavours were garish and lacking in refinement. Other times, relatives would say that chop suey was the only kind of Chinese that non-Chinese people would eat because the real stuff would scare them. Those relatives would tell me that our food was too slimy or gristly or strange for others to bear.

  Either way, I would hear over and over that this chop suey cuisine had little to do with Chineseness—and certainly nothing to do with us.

  What I didn’t realize at the time was that this food would eventually grow into a lifelong obsession. And what I really didn’t realize was that this foreign food had more to do with me than I could ever imagine.

  Staring down at my plate that day—the cherry-coloured pork and deep-fried spring rolls—I never could have imagined that these peculiar dishes might one day help me uncover my own story.

  Chapter One

  Victoria, BC.

  Spring 2016

  On a grey Monday in March, I stepped out of the Victoria International Airport wearing my winter jacket and carrying a suitcase. Hours earlier, my husband Anthony and I had boarded a six a.m. flight from our home in Toronto to Vancouver. From there, we had transferred onto a smaller jet that took us to Victoria.

  Our plan was to drive across Canada in eighteen days.

  Planning for the trip had begun many months earlier. During a story meeting with my editors at The Globe and Mail, I mentioned my interest in Chinese restaurants. I was especially interested, I said, in the “chop suey” style restaurants I saw all over the country.

  “There’s tons of great, authentic Chinese food all over the country,” I said. “And yet this ‘chop suey’ stuff—this not-Chinese Chinese is still everywhere. Why?”

  One of the editors, Denise Balkissoon, was immediately intrigued. She encouraged me to develop the idea and so over the course of the next few weeks, we brainstormed questions that the story might answer.

  I wanted to understand how so many of these “chop suey” restaurants were so astonishingly similar. At the chop suey restaurants I’d visited in BC’s interior, in southwestern Ontario and rural Quebec, “Chinese” somehow looked and felt exactly the same. Somehow, the restaurants all seemed to have the same red vinyl chairs, the same red-tasselled hanging lanterns, the same paper menus, often printed on placemats, always printed in the same font.

  I also wanted to know how these chop suey restaurants were doing amid the massive influx of Chinese immigrants to cities like Toronto and Vancouver and their suburbs. The past few decades had introduced Canada to so many different kinds of Chinese—new waves of immigration from all over China, bringing with them very good, very authentic regional Chinese food. No longer was it just Cantonese, but also Sichuan or Fujian or Hakka—so many varieties that it no longer made sense to talk about “eating Chinese.” Instead, it was Malaysian-Chinese, or Shanghainese, or Hong-Kong-cafe Chinese, or congee-and-noodle Chinese, or Chinatown-small-plate-Edison-bulb Chinese.

  I was curious what all these different types of Chinese food meant for the chop suey stuff. I wanted to know: with so much real Chinese food available, were people still eating the fake stuff?

  I also wanted to know what life was like for those running these restaurants. There was one restaurant that captured my imagination, right from the start. I’d stumbled across it on the Internet, in a blog post titled “I can’t believe there’s a Chinese restaurant in Fogo.” The post was about Fogo Island, the tiny island off the northeastern tip of Newfoundland. The post described a woman living alone, running a Chinese restaurant in the middle of nowhere. For miles around, she was the only Chinese person
in sight. Her life seemed about as isolated as I could possibly imagine. I wanted to understand what would compel someone to live a life like hers.

  The question I was looking to answer was simple. It was a question I would repeat over and over as I made my way from coast to coast, visiting the many restaurants and explaining the purpose of my visit.

  The question was this: How did you wind up here? What brought you here?

  * * *

  I forget when, exactly, but at some point my editors and I decided the trip would have to be a cross-country one. After all, as far as we could tell, every small town across the country seemed to have one of these restaurants.

  And so I began planning.

  I ruled out flying right away. Flying wouldn’t get me to where I needed to go. I was interested in small towns, not cities with giant airports in them. I liked the idea of a train. After all, the railway was what brought many of the Chinese to this country to begin with. But travel by train would be slow. Plus, it would mean I’d be bound by schedules.

  So driving seemed like the best option. There was one problem: I hate driving. But Anthony surprised me by volunteering to come along. By happenstance, he had stumbled upon some free time and was keen to join me on what was shaping up to be a trip of a lifetime. Here was a chance for us to explore together all the nooks and crannies of this country, all the places we might never otherwise think to go see.