37. A CONVERSATION: GROWING UP IN DIFFERENT TIMES

                                                                                                                             会话




MICHELLE CHAN (see Post #36: Chan Family) generously shared some impressions of growing up in Niagara Falls. She didn’t live in Chinatown. Her times were more liberal. Our experiences of being Chinese and growing up in the predominantly Eurocentric culture are different, yet related.

If not separated by the great distance between where we each live, Michelle and I might have had the following face-to-face conversation. Instead, her words have been excerpted from our correspondence.



Michelle:

There wasn’t much cultural diversity. In elementary school, I recall being schoolmates with a Canadian-born Vietnamese girl (whose family spoke Cantonese as well), and several years later when I changed elementary schools, I met another Canadian-born Chinese student in my year and his younger siblings, as well as one (I believe Canadian-born, but am unsure) Indian girl and her older and younger sisters.

By 7^th grade, a Korean-born student and a Sri Lankan-born student had joined my year and we had two Australian sisters join us (with such exotic accents, people would remark!), and one black student a year under me. Aside from those faces, the crowds were dominantly white and Canadian-born.

By the time I entered high school, I had met some other visible minorities of Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese descent, but still only enough to account for a couple handfuls across the board from grades 9 through 12.

Mary:

It’s funny what one sees and remembers. As you know, I don’t remember your father even though we were both at NFCVI together. Certainly at high school, I knew who was part of the “in” group and then there were the rest of us.

In my elementary years, my brother was the only “colour” who was present. Diversity existed in other ways though. There was a boy who had had polio so he wore a brace on his leg; a girl who attended the special class at the school; another girl whose mother was absent and lived with her father only; and a boy from Germany who spoke with a bit of an accent. He was the one whose ethnic culture seemed to have an influence on how he was treated. He’s the one I recall as being teased.

I didn’t really have friends outside of school. Few kids lived within the radius I was allowed to roam in.

For a little while back in grade 1, a girl who said she was from Macedonia lived on Erie Avenue, upstairs of a business. I had no idea where Macedonia was but we were alike insofar as both our homes didn’t look like what we saw in books at school. We played together then her family moved away.

Then there was a family who had 3 children who first lived in an apartment above the W.J. Hamilton Travel Agency on Zimmerman (Clifton) near Bridge Street and then moved to Huron Street near Ontario Avenue. I don’t think they had a father living with them. They didn’t stay long at either place.

Michelle:

My friends were always excited to come over for dinner and they loved my mom's cooking. They would tag along to Ching Ming and cemetery visits with my family, and come over for Chinese New Year lunch and any other family events I invited them to.

Mary:

 I admire how warm your family was towards your friends and your assurance in inviting them over.

I can only recall a couple times when I had a friend come into our home. One occasion, my mother was drinking tea and eating toast. She offered us some.

The friend wrinkled up her nose. She had never tasted marmalade before.

Rather than dismissing the incident as an example of another child’s limited tastes, my child-self understood that my home was inadequate; or worse yet, my mother was odd.

In so many things, my parents tried to insure that our lives looked Canadian but we didn’t get it quite right.

When I was in grade 4, I wanted to attend Sunday School at the new St. Andrew’s Church (Morrison & Stanley St.) A school friend went there and both my brother and I had gone intermittently when St. Andrew’s was located downtown (Queen St. & St. Clair Ave.).

My father went to great lengths to drive me to the new church. My mother purchased going to church clothes – a hat and new coat – from either Walker’s or El Win’s on Queen St.

When I went to Sunday School, the girls whom I didn’t know made fun of me. Eventually, I stopped going.

School was the setting where, for the most part, I met with approval.

Michelle:

Even with the few people I encountered during elementary school who felt it appropriate to throw racial slurs, I had no concept of any insult or offense and took it in stride as if words like “chink” were synonymous with Chinese – no malice intended.

Mary:

I lacked your confidence.

Michelle:

Surrounded by North American culture, I never thought twice about having a different home life. The way we ate meals was communal, but the way my friends ate meals was in a plate by plate serving sectioned out before the meal started.

Eventually we started to emulate this at home by leaving my parents in the kitchen to eat communally while my brothers and I sought the TV as our hearth with our pre-sectioned out plates/bowls.

Some of my friends' families would say grace, and sometimes I would be caught with fork halfway into food before I panicked and folded my hands to join them, because that was completely foreign to me.

Mary:

I can’t recall ever going out to eat at a friend’s. You got to implement and practice what you learned. Mine was more just in theory.

Since my parents operated a restaurant, the western ways of eating you described were not strange to me.

Like the earlier marmalade incident I mentioned, it was what was eaten that tripped me up.

In Home Economics class in grade 8, Mrs. Mavel, the teacher, went round the class of girls and asked each of us what kind of salad dressing we used at home.

Rather than admit that we didn’t eat salad or just repeat what the girl before me said, I told her we ate Miracle Whip. I had seen it in the fridge at the restaurant and knew it was used when lettuce was involved.

I can still remember the teacher saying Miracle Whip wasn’t a salad dressing. (A small comment but it stills looms in my memory.) After that, I became a keen researcher of food but not for the purposes of cooking and eating.

One assignment, Mrs. Mavel gave us was to draw up a fancy salad plate arrangement. Mine had a couple raw carrots sliced lengthwise used to apportion the plate. In each division, I drew in colourful vegetables in symmetrical arrays. I got a very good mark for the assignment even though peas and beans were the only depicted vegetables that we ate at home – even then, though, they had to be cooked.

Michelle:

The only times I felt a bit of an outcast were times I would translate for my mom – day to day situations like at banks or at school, explaining things that others may use more complex language for, especially if I didn't know the Chinese for, I would just simplify into a more common level of English between the two of us, something most other kids didn’t do; and as a reversal, I felt a bit of an outcast from my own culture.

When speaking English, my mom’s accent is/was thick and communication was often made even more complicated because in places like Toronto, people are used to deciphering accents and broken English, but particularly here in Niagara, the expectations are higher and patience is generally lower.

Even to this day, her English is quite limited but she’s still quite keen to try and engage with people in English when Chinese isn’t an option.

Mary:

My mother never learned to speak English. She came to Canada when she was about 37 and lived here until her death – days shy of her 98^th birthday. Consequently, it was not providing her with simpler English.

It was not that I had to translate from English into Chinese for my mother: it’s what she asked me to translate for her when I was a child.

Before your time, there was a natural gas utility office on Victoria Avenue. We’d go there to pay the gas bill. The office also stocked and sold gas ranges. Mother needed one for the restaurant and wanted a very basic model – no frills. When she spotted the one she wanted and looked at the price, she told me to ask the salesman if she could get it for a cheaper price.

He said, “No.”

My mother then instructed me to ask what the lump sum cash price would be.

As a child, I knew nothing about bartering. The price was the price and that was it. I was quite embarrassed.

Michelle:

As a child, I was fluent in Taishanese at home. Thanks to my paternal side of the family, my dad, brothers, and school, I became fluent in English, but at the expense of my mother tongue.

It took twenty some odd years for me to see the necessity of re-acquiring Taishanese and Cantonese to be able to share meaningful conversation with my family and better immerse myself in my culture. I think when I moved away from home and didn't have that cultural presence around me, I wanted it to be in my own new home and that really felt absent because I had been so absent from the culture.

I kept in touch with my family via Skype and eventually WeChat, and without all the pantomime. I really felt it necessary to get back into my own culture.

Language is a hugely strong presence of culture, and the added incentive is I can converse comfortably with more of my family members. I had seen other family members reduced to no more conversation than telling grandma “I'm full.”

I couldn't imagine letting meaningful conversation with my 90-year old grandmother slip away.

Mary:

I’m glad that you’ve re-gained your first language. When I was a child, my Chinese vocabulary was limited to simple family and home-related phrases. For western concepts, I inserted English words and sometimes my mother just picked them up for her use, too. She just added a suffix: too-see, sanwich-ee.

Michelle:

I definitely felt more like a Canadian growing up, and I think that was the intention my family had so I would fit in. As I lost my language skills, I felt at a loss communicating with some of my family members, and I would be too embarrassed to speak incorrectly, something that I now reassure other language learners is just a natural and naturally embarrassing part of learning.

Mary:

I get what you’re saying.

Once I left home, my need and opportunity to speak Chinese disappeared. My weak Chinese language skills became poorer.

My husband and I went to Hong Kong and Kaiping in 2016 and met with cousins whom I had never met before. Except for one cousin’s son, they did not speak English.

I struggled to speak my “baby” Toisan (Taishanese) with them and felt very self-conscious about my lack of knowledge.

There really was no need as they embraced all my attempts to communicate.

Michelle:

In a dominantly white, Christian, small city, preserving all we have is paramount when we’re largely expected to melt into Canadian culture. 

I find it difficult to describe Canadian culture because being raised in it, it just “is!"

If you had asked me this as a child with the wisdom I have today, I probably would have said Canadian culture is whatever white Christians do and anything else is a little “off.” People would keep their distance and probably scoff under their breath at any “weirdness.”

Mary:

Growing up, I think that’s what I wanted to avoid: any perception of being weird.

Michelle:

Canadian culture is definitely not Chinese culture. Canadian culture is so open-ended. It's now pretty supportive of customs coming and going. There is no dictation of having to do something as specific as Ching Ming, but if it's a custom you observe, then go ahead and do it. It's not really a big deal.

I feel like it's something I take for granted because I just know it's here, without being limiting to the way my family chooses to live, and yet I still don't quite have words to describe it, and it's continually changing.

So with that in mind, I'm very comfortable with Canadian culture because rather than melting in, as time has passed, we've interwoven cultures and a greater level of tolerance and acceptance that continues to grow.

Mary:

Historically, the United States have portrayed themselves as a “melting pot” whereas Canada promotes a “cultural mosaic.” Of course, Canada’s past with Indigenous peoples does not necessarily live up to that claim.

That aside, the times we grow up in shape us.

Almost four decades separate Michelle and me in age. When I was born, the population of Niagara Falls was 24,158. Was difference more easily discernible then? Was there less difference?

 In the latest census (2016), the population of Niagara Falls has risen to 88,071. Of that, 1% reported speaking a Chinese language.

However, as reported in this newspaper clipping from 1973 (Niagara Falls Public Library), the number of “Chinese” was not noted.

Chinese were not included in "Together They Are Niagara Falls." 

Who were we? A-part.

Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time. ~ 

Chinese proverb