Paul Yee with Saltwater City: The Story of Vancouver’s Chinese Community which actually contains a picture of me performing at the 2003 Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.


Host Sheryl Mackay with the Ricepaper/ explorASIAN crew - Don Montgomery, Krystal and Annabelle - photo Todd Wong

On May 2nd, Wednesday, Jen Sookfong Lee was the featured guest, to help CBC Radio celebrate Asian Heritage Month, so explorASIAN was one of the sponsors.  The book club took place in one of the tv studios - I guess Studio One is part of the renovations as the CBC building is being dug up along Hamilton St. 

The format is this: Sheryl and John introduce the show, talk about their guest, then introduced Jen, and invited her up from the audience.  They ask Jen a number of questions and discussed her book.

It's about Samantha Chan who tries to run away from Vancouver to Montreal to escape her "Chinese-ness" but ends up returning when she discovers her grandfather's head tax certificate.  Her novel tells a dual story of the early Chinese pioneers to Vancouver during the time of head tax (1895-1923) and the 1923 exclusion act while also telling a contemporary story of present day Samantha Chan dealing with her identity and family history. 

Jen says that her first novel took 7 years to completion.  She took the Master of Fine Arts for Creative Writing at UBC and was writing a lot of poetry.  Soon she got a job in Chinatown.  She walked its streets and breathed its history.  She photocopied her grandfather's head tax certificate and hung it up on the wall.  At the time, the head tax redress movement had been rearing its head here and there, but gained steam as Jen was refining her final drafts.  As head tax redress became an exciting election issue during the 2005 federal election, she was finishing her seventh and final draft.  She decided that the novel was finishing itself and would not be influenced by the current events. 

As usual, audience members are invited to ask the author questions.  I introduced myself, and told Jen I had written about her novel on my blog.  She said she had been reading my articles.  I told her that like her, I am also a head tax descendent.  And then I asked her my question.... You can hear my question on the upcoming Jen Sookfong Lee CBC Studio One Book Club event, part of Vancouver's Asian Heritage Month celebrations, will be broadcast the third and fourth Sundays of this month, on May 20 and 27 in British Columbia on the North by Northwest program between 8:00am and 9:00am.