full image Long-time Eastside activist Sid Tan took his grandfather's advice to heart.

Sid Tan, on head tax and being a good-time man

Who: Sid Tan

What: President of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians

Roots: Born in China, Tan came to Canada as a 'paper son' - under falsified papers that showed him to be the son of his grandparents. Tan and his family were affected and separated by exclusionary government policy which was in place as recently as 60 years ago. Today, Tan works as a social activist, fighting for an official apology from the Canadian government, which would include a redress of the $500 'Head Tax' once charged on Chinese immigrants.

In brief: "I'm from East Van, formerly out of Saskatchewan. I'm a good-time man. That's why I'm known around the world. I'm a Gold Mountain dragon and a Rocky Mountain warrior. The other day, my friends and I had a contest to see who could eat a live rat the fastest, and I won. I've got steel wires for guts, concrete in my bones and fire in my blood. I've been called a Navajo, I've been called Juan from Mexico, I've been called Carlos the Filipino, but my favourite is still 'Good Time Joe.' I can cook better, eat faster, love longer, yell louder, shout and act dumber than anybody I know, with the exception of my Uncle Bing. There's not a woman alive that can't make a fool out of me, that's how tough I am."

Knowing his roots: "To live is hope. In the great scheme of things, I have two kids, they're both full-grown. My son's a lawyer in Sydney, Australia, and my daughter's a professional poker player. I'm a grandfather. So what are you going to do? I have to try to make a better world. That's hope. I get pensive, but you get to choose, and I choose to participate. I choose to participate because my grandfather didn't have the chance to participate when he was my age, because he was a second-class citizen. It was not until 1947 that he could actually vote as a Chinese-Canadian. He always impressed on me the importance of that."

Go left, young man: "Even as a kid, I was pretty politicized. One of the first battles I fought in and won was Medicare in 1962. I mean, who would have thought we'd ever have that? When I was a kid, somebody threw a rock at me and I was blinded in one of my eyes and I had to go to University Hospital in North Battleford. I seem to recall that it was $1,300 that my grandfather had to pay. I remember I had to write out the cheque for him, and that was a tremendous amount of money, that was all his savings. You never forget that."

Some things never change: "I graduated from the University of Calgary with an arts degree, and that and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee. I was supposed to be a lawyer, but I got busted. I was named after a lawyer, actually, a man called Sidney Waterman... my grandfather, knowing a bunch of important people, and wanting to bring us kids over, knew that this man was responsible for helping make that happen, so he decided to honour him."

Some things never change, part II: "This is my claim to fame in my hometown: I was the first person busted for hash possession.... We were at the University of Calgary, and we had this massive amount of hash and we brought it back to Battleford. Big mistake.... We got busted, and I had to spend a night in jail and think I had to pay a $500 fine, and I think my tuition for school was only $300, so it was a lot. These are things you look back on and, they weren't funny at the time, but you look back and you see that it's kind of funny, and this is the way heaven's meant it to be - just like my grandfather getting his citizenship in 1947 and the Communist Revolution happening in China in 1949. Some things are meant to happen."

Present-day upstanding citizen: "I think in regard to recovering the head tax there's no use negotiating numbers until the government decided to come to the table to negotiate. I've talked to the survivors - and remember, we're talking about a handful of people. There's only three head-taxpayers that I know of in Canada, and I've been working on this 20 years. There's some spouses, women that were separated from their husbands during exclusion from 1923-1947. I believe that they should get some sort of individual recognition and compensation. As for the descendants, the sons and daughters, they can decide what they want, but I think that many of them would be happy with some sort of larger community redress."

Correcting the future: "What we're having trouble with is the recognition. They haven't apologized or anything, they're just throwing money out there and letting us fight for it.... How come the Japanese have received redress? The head tax and exclusion is more current. I don't care about compensation; I'm going after the principle of the tax refund. I believe the 81,000 people who paid the head tax should be commemorated. Because a hundred years from now, their descendants will be claiming, like Americans do with their ancestors who came on the Mayflower: 'My ancestors paid the head tax, and my ancestors got justice.'"

Remembering the past: "Both my grandparents are buried in Battleford, Saskatchewan. I don't really have any loyalty or patriotism to the old country. I was born there but I've never been back... I'm a proud Canadian. One of the reasons I do this is because I'm interested in the story. I don't care about the money, I don't care about the compensation. I want to put the story right. That's what I feel I have to do, as a Canadian."

International wisdom: "This is my grandfather's, but I'll put it in a more literary way: when you exercise your muscles, you build your body; when you exercise your brain, you strengthen your mind; and when you exercise your rights, you reveal your soul."

Copyright 2005 westender