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49. NIAGARA FALLS VISIT 2025

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In June 2023, I visited Niagara Falls for a couple hours. Friend Betty drove us from her Richmond Hill home to Fairview Cemetery so I could tend to my family’s grave: weeding, planting new flowers, and paying respects. Lunch with long-time family friend Robert Wong completed the visit. Now two years later, I returned once again: staying a few days. On this occasion, my daughter-in-law and granddaughter accompanied me for their first Niagara Falls experiences. We took in the majesty of the Niagara River as well as the carnival atmosphere of Clifton Hill. Present times were suffused with memories of growing up in Niagara. On Clifton Hill, I looked for any identifying remnants of the old Honeymoon Gift Shop where I had spent a couple summers reminding tourists not to smoke while perusing the fireworks for purchase. Walking towards the Falls, we entered Table Rock House. Self-serve aisles of merchandise had replaced the island counters where I, as a summer student hire, had been quizzed by...
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48. MEMORY FROM A CHRISTMAS CARD ENCLOSURE

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Long-time friend RR enclosed this program with his Christmas card. His note suggested that we were both in attendance at this concert. Back in 1961, I had yet to make his acquaintance. At the time, I would have been in Mrs. Love’s grade 4 class at Maple Street School. RR must have attended a different school as he lived close to NFCVI and distant from my Chinatown home. From what I can put together, my singing group would have attended the Tuesday performance. Going out on a Tuesday evening with Mother was a big deal: transportation a hassle. My group had to have been “Little Swiss Misses and Little Swiss Men” with Miss Jolley as the conductor. Although I do recall her being a teacher at my school, my costume and hair for the concert are more vivid in memory. The girls wore large white, lacy-edged paper placemats fashioned into aprons and caps fabricated of similar paper. In elementary school, I had at least shoulder-length hair but on this occasion Mother saw fit to extend its...
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47. Reflecting on Education

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For most of my life --    first as a student and later, as an educator --  September signalled the beginning of another school year. During elementary and secondary school years, Mother moved brother Jack and me to stay at the restaurant in Stamford. That way, she could work longer hours with my father instead of busing home to look after us. Chores (peeling potatoes, flattening ground meat into patties, cutting butter into squares, stirring boiling pots, running errands) interspersed with TV would keep us occupied. Summers, my brother stuck pretty close to the restaurant. Eventually, he devised and thrived in a handyman role. Jack was clever with his hands and my parents supported and benefitted from his talent and provided requested tools and materials. There was one summer when I had swimming lessons at the Cyanamid Pool on Stanley Avenue. And another, when I was permitted weekly visits to the public library on Victoria Avenue near the Armoury. It was not that I was d...
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46. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PANDEMIC - ALMOST

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   Two weeks since my second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine: the pandemic is not over but I feel safer. Like many locals and tourists wandering about in the streets of Victoria, I’ve looked back at what was prohibited during the more stringent times and am now looking forward.    What’s next? What can we do now that restrictions are eased? What has been lost? What cannot be recovered?      Last July – a year ago – I had planned to bring my nine-year old granddaughter to Niagara Falls. We’d fly from Victoria to Toronto, bus or rent a car, and drive around Niagara for a few days. Yes, the usual tourist attractions and activities (see the Falls, ride the Hornblower cruise, walk Clifton Hill, hike the Glen, climb Brock’s Monument, cruise the parkway – perhaps to Niagara-on-the-Lake for ice cream) formed the bulk of the itinerary and there were the lesser attractions – remnants from my past.      This is where Chinatown use t...
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45. REFLECTION ON TIMES

For the past couple of years in Victoria, BC (where I now live), a city councillor has questioned the public installation of seasonal (Christmas) decorations. First came a call for more cultural diversification as publicly-funded decorations were primarily suggestive of Christianity. The next year, he argued that the reduction/elimination of decorations could serve as a cost-saving measure. This year with the advent of COVID-19, changes have fallen in line with restrictions to inhibit public gatherings. However, within my condo building, where for our 9 years in residence, the common areas have been festooned with lighted tree, baubles, wreaths, garlands, etc. and for the first time been met with an accusation of hegemony. In reporting the complaint, the strata council included a definition of hegemony in its minutes. The term hegemony – dominance or control by a specific group – had not become part of my vocabulary until much later in my formal education. However, as a child growing u...
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44. Role of Dress

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T his photo of my parents was taken at James Photography in Niagara Falls. As a child, I only remember the studio being on Valley Way; that bit of street that stretches from Queen to Victoria Avenue but before my time, back in 1948, the date of the photo, the studio was located in the James house, fronting on Victoria Avenue with a yard stretching back onto Eastwood Crescent. When I was growing up, the photo occupied a prominent spot – always on display. Keith, my husband refers to the photo as my parents’ wedding picture. Online at the Niagara Falls Public Library Images Database, you can look at the prolific James Photography collection. By way of comparison, the photo of my parents does not connote a wedding. There is no flowing gown or even the inclusion of flowers as in the less elaborate wedding pictures – labelled as such. Anyway, my husband refers to it as a wedding photo; my parents would have wanted a picture to send back to relatives in China showing that my mother – the b...
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43. MAY: ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH

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        May is Asian Heritage Month . Although this time “offers all Canadians an opportunity to learn more about the history of Asian Canadians” and has been around since 2002, I’ve only been aware of it for a couple of years. Now with the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing, even fewer recognitions this month are likely so this post is a nod to Asian heritage – Chinese heritage – in particular that of my parents and their legacy to me. My father landed in Victoria, BC on December 23, 1918. The “General Register of Chinese Immigration” (January 22, 1919) lists him as Lee Tow Kin, age 14: travelling from his home village of Har Hung, District of Hoiping, China. Victoria, BC was his port of entry. He had travelled across the Pacific Ocean on the Suwa Maru. Toronto, ON was listed as his final destination. The Register notes that my father – like other Chinese immigrants to Canada between the period 1885 to 1923 – paid an additional fee for bein...
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