Preserves: The Manitoba Food HIstory PODCAST

KENT DAVIES: On this episode, we’ll feature a podcast by Quinn MacNeil, a student here at University of Winnipeg, about Canadian Chinese cuisine. On one of our research trips, our Manitoba Food History team went to Steinbach and talked with Lo Ki Mak. Can you tell us a little about the trip, Janis? And what restaurant was that?

JANIS THIESSEN: It was Lee's Village restaurant. Lee’s Village restaurant has been there for the longest time. I remember going there as a kid. And we went to Steinbach, in part, because I spent some time there in high school and my undergraduate years. So, it seemed like a good place to go. We knew a little background. It also was convenient to Winnipeg for our first time with the truck; in case it should run into any trouble, we could haul it back.

KENT DAVIES: So around the same time we were doing this interview, Globe and Mail reporter Ann Hui released her book called Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada's Chinese Restaurants.¹ It’s a wonderful book. You’ve read it?

JANIS THIESSEN: No.

KENT DAVIES: No?

JANIS THIESSEN: No, because you had it the whole time!

KENT DAVIES: I’m sorry to put you on the spot. Well, I’ve read it and it’s a wonderful book and it tells the story of Hui’s family, while telling the story of Chinese restaurants in Canada. And she goes on this road trip across the country in, like, eighteen days and even stops here in Manitoba at a restaurant in Boissevain. I really enjoyed it, and the reason I bring it up is there is a lot of parallels in the subjects explored in this work and in the interview with Mak highlighted in this podcast.

JANIS THIESSEN: Yes, it’s a book that has been getting a lot of well-deserved attention. I look forward to reading it now that I have my copy back [laughs]. And it raises a bunch of questions that some other folks writing about food history have been raising –– questions about authenticity. So for example there’s a book called the Ethnic Restaurateur by Krishnendu Ray that talks about, you know, what constitutes an ethnic restaurant, and what is a non-ethnic restaurant, and why do we want to differentiate between them? And then within the so-called ethnic restaurants, what does it even mean to be, you know, a real Chinese restaurant when these are very much historic creations, and shaped by time and circumstances.²

He raises, too, as I’m sure Ann Hui does as well, the racist aspect of many of the ways we look at these restaurants, in terms of setting aside certain groups of certain cultures and their restaurants as ones that are considered not high end, not deserving of high pay. You know, we expect tacos to be cheap, we expect Chinese food to be cheap, yet the costs of production, the costs of service, the costs of space rental are the same for them as they are for any other so-called higher end restaurants.

KENT DAVIES: Could the case also be made that a lot of Chinese food restaurants were created out of economic discrimination, and how it was a way to survive because there were very limited options of what you could do as a labourer after some of these mega-projects happened across Canada?

JANIS THIESSEN: Exactly, when you have restrictions on where you can buy property or if you can buy property; when you have restrictions on what kind of businesses you can operate; restrictions on entry into universities to get the education you need to enter certain professions. The great value of a restaurant is that those are often skills that you have anyway within your own family –– you can rely on family labour –– so it makes it something that you can actually do in order to earn a living in a racist environment that is hampering your other opportunities. And we saw this... This particular episode is about the Chinese Canadian community, but we saw this also with the Greek Canadian episode that we did on chili burgers and Greek burger joints. You know, they didn’t have access to financial capital, banks weren’t giving them loans, and so they ended up looking out for each other in that way in order to establish restaurants and share recipes, and share property, too.

KENT DAVIES: Yeah, I don’t want to give away too much of what’s going to happen in the podcast, but I think that’s totally reflected in this episode. It’s quite a remarkable story.

JANIS THIESSEN: For sure.

LOK KI MAK: Rice is the main thing. Really, really, rice is one of the biggest things. Just like my mom, she says that if she doesn’t have rice, she can’t even sleep. She needs rice because rice is way more filling. And if you ask me, rice and potatoes and that... There’s nothing that can overcome rice. And just like people before, it’s like, okay if you, if someone gives you like a million or how many million dollars to tell you can’t have rice anymore in your life, can you do it? I said no. Forget it. Don’t give me that money. No. No, no [laughs].

QUINN MACNEIL: This is Lok Ki Mak, the owner and chef at Lee’s Village Restaurant in Steinbach, Manitoba. My name is Quinn MacNeil and today we’ll explore the role Chinese-Canadian food restaurants have played in Chinese diaspora––where through cuisine, Chinese Canadian’s have overcome racism and discrimination.

Chinese-Canadian food restaurants. From BC to Newfoundland, there’s almost one in every town––and that’s no coincidence. These restaurants have been standing for decades and are almost so commonplace that we fail to notice them as points of interest or sites of cultural exploration. If McDonald's hasn’t managed to squeeze its way into every Canadian corner, but Chinese-Canadian restaurants have, there’s clearly something going on here, and we’re glad Lok was able to share his experience with our interviewer, Sarah Story, to help contextualize some of this in a contemporary light.

LOK KI MAK: I grew up in Hong Kong. Sibling-wise I have an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother––well, my younger brother also studies in Steinbach right now. I would say, for me, the lifestyle is totally different from back home and here. And the difference is back there it’s so crowded, all the technology is so advanced and all that. I still remember, while my sister studied here first––also the same school, Steinbach Christian High––for one year. My sister’s six years older than me, so when she’s finished her schooling and university she went home and then she asked me if I want to come to Canada to study. And then ah, it’s kind of scary in the first place, but I myself am kind of an explorer, I don’t mind to go outside because I know a lot of people, a lot of my friends, they don’t have a chance to go out to see the world, but then I was like okay this is my chance.

QUINN MACNEIL: For clarification, Lok is participating in what is characterized as “Chinese-Canadian cuisine” despite him not being from mainland China. Being just fifteen when he arrived in Canada in 2003, he knew he was lucky to have the opportunity to come here to study, but what he didn’t know was that this decision would change far more than his English proficiency.

LOK KI MAK: The main reason, the first thing to come over to Canada is to learn how to speak English, like, you know. But then when I chose to come over. I said "Well, I should take this chance. If I don’t like it, one year later I can go back home. No problem.” But then no, once I arrived here, I saw this... I feel like freedom here. Not just about family, that I’m away from my family and that, it's just like you don’t have those pressures, the environment didn’t give you pressure. The thing is, you look out. You see clear sky. It’s so wide and open, the area. But in Hong Kong, right, they are one of the most... The population density... It's one of the places in the world... It's like lots of people! The thing about it, seven, eight million people in just little small places, kind of like double the size of Winnipeg. And you can tell that’s pretty crazy. And then with all those high-rises around you, you feel like you’re kind of... I feel, something that you can’t see but you can feel the pressures around you, because whenever you see you can’t see a clear sky, an open sky, because you feel like you’re in a jail, kind of. So, when I came here, just like two, three months later, I tell my mom and I told my dad, like, I think I want to live here.

QUINN MACNEIL: Lok notes the peacefulness of the prairies and the friendliness of those who inhabited it, but as anyone who has been in this situation before knows, the anxieties of being unable to communicate in the language of the people around you knows no end. You never have that relief of being able to fully express yourself and showcase your personality. It can be an isolating period, which is why it’s common for newcomers to surround themselves with, if available, members of the community who speak their language.

LOK KI MAK: My English is very poor back then, in the whole school of like forty kids, and my friends and all that. I was the last three, English is like baaaaad [laughs], bad. I remember the first year, in grade nine, I only had two friends that are in grade twelve. I mean, they are from Hong Kong.

QUINN MACNEIL: Although Lok notes that his Cantonese-speaking friends toppled him in age, and therefore graduated and left him to battle the obstacles of high school in a language he struggled to participate in, it was almost a blessing in disguise because it forced Lok to use his English––a fact Lok believes it to be a main contributor for why he attained a high level of English compared to many who have lived in Canada for years longer than him. But at the time, when Lok’s English was still, as he put it, “bad,” he was introduced to the local Chinese food restaurant through his Cantonese-speaking friends.

LOK KI MAK: The owner of this restaurant, and then across the street, right now the Fortune Kitchen, but back then it was called Crystal Garden. I don’t know this owner here first, the previous owner’s names are Tom and Sylvia Sung. And Sylvia is Lee––Sylvia is the wife but usually they keep their last names. At first I know them in Crystal Garden, where we have one lady we call grandma, her last name is Chen, her son owned it, Andy Chen, and so that’s the first I know them––because my friends in grade 12 know them and so because of him, I also have a chance to meet them. And then once I met them I've been like friends with them for the rest of the time. And then the grandma knows Tom and Sylvia here, and that’s why I’m here too.

QUINN MACNEIL: Lok being introduced to the local Chinese-Canadian restaurant follows a pattern in Chinese immigration history. Language and cultural barriers drove newcomers to frequent such establishments because they provided a sense of community, resources, and often jobs as English and French may not have been necessary for employment. Even for Lok, although he developed a handle on English, his goal was to become a Canadian citizen with a stable job, and the fastest way for him to achieve these goals were by completing a college degree in management, and taking over the very same restaurant that had welcomed him into the community.

But the question remains, why were restaurants such a popular means of employment to new Chinese-Canadians? And why are so many of these restaurants in towns that barely warrant (according to fast-food conglomerates) a restaurant in the first place? Why small towns? What was it that made them seem like such appealing nests to those looking to make one in a new country? Did everyone share Lok’s desire for clear skies and vast fields seemingly unpolluted by the bustle of the big city? Some by chance may have, but regardless of how they felt toward small towns, Chinese newcomers were in rural Canada for reasons beyond the sheer desire for some fresh air.

In 1885, a Royal Commissions Report indicated that among Chinese inhabitants of British Columbia, the top three modes of employment were building the railway, gold mining, and coal mining, all of which were followed closely by additional labourer positions.³ In her book Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada, Lily Cho explains that some of the earliest Chinese communities in Canada were those places where a large number of Chinese people worked for settler-owned companies. This predominantly meant those very same industries like rail, coal, sawmills, farms––all of which were rural.⁴ This meant that Chinese immigrants were forced into these rural places to make a living, sometimes for labour positions that were only seasonal, leaving them to either move to a bigger city at the end of their work-term (if they had the money to support the necessary transportation, since they were usually receiving less than 50% of what Caucasian workers were paid for the same work) or settle where they were.⁵ However, this doesn’t tell the entire story. Would this not create a sort-of “China-town effect” in all the towns with big industries? Not exactly.

Those who were finally able to open their own restaurants, to avoid competition, would often open it in the next town or railway stop over.⁶ Even in urban settlements in the early twentieth century, agreements were made between Chinese settlers to avoid internal competition.⁷ A Chinese-Canadian restaurant that may have been a place for employment and community for newcomers could therefore also serve as a place of opportunity for upward mobility by providing the skillset for others to open up their very own restaurants in places that wouldn’t infringe on the cliental of the original––a pattern consistent from the days of the railway to Lok’s life in the twenty first century.

LOK KI MAK: It’s kind of like a branch going out like this. Andy that used to own Crystal Garden used to work for Tom and Sylvia. So, what happened is when Tom and Sylvia they run this place, well they bought it from the sister right? I don’t how many years they ran this but then there is two persons who worked for them. Oh, there’s three actually. There’s like Andy, one is Chris, and one is Keith. Keith is like Tom’s brother. So three people. So what happened is when they sold... Once they ran this for, I don’t know, ten years? And then because Tom’s kid are growing up, become teenagers. So they want to spend more time with the kids. So they sold this place to Sylvia’s cousin and his name is Tinquoy. After they sold this place to Tinquoy after they sold this place [Lee’s Village] to Tinquoy they go across the street, they open Crystal Garden, because Andy wanted to become an owner too. Andy’s family had a little money so once he sold it to Tinquoy of course he didn’t have anywhere to go. So Tom and Sylvia across the street opened that, it’s called Crystal Garden, and then run it two years, business is going great, and then sold it to Andy. So that’s one of the branches that go out. Then as time passed, Chris opened a brand-new Chinese restaurant in Stonewall too, and Keith moved to the old place where Chris used to work in Stonewall.

SARAH STORY: Oh so there’s two places in Stonewall now. Interesting.

LOK KI MAK: Yeah it's kind of branched out, And then what happened with Tinquoy here, that bought the restaurant right, sold this back to Tom and Sylvia after he ran it for another eight or ten years, because their kids grow up already, so they bought it back. Tinquoy move to Selkirk, and also bought a restaurant there. So, you see it’s like a thing that blooms. It’s going everywhere.

QUINN MACNEIL: Okay so that explains the towns, but why the restaurants? What led to statistics like those in 1931, where Chinese immigrants made up 1% of the population, yet 20% of all restaurants, cafes and taverns were run by people of Chinese origin?⁸

A brief look at Chinese immigration policy and Canadian attitudes towards Chinese settlers helps explain this phenomenon. Between 1858 and 1884, Chinese immigration was unrestricted in Canada and many workers came to mine gold.⁹ But in 1885, Canada implemented the Chinese Immigration Act, which attempted to restrict Chinese immigration by means of a head tax that started at fifty dollars and was later raised to a hundred dollars, and finally five hundred dollars in 1903. For reference, based on the findings of the royal commission, the average Chinese labourer earned three hundred dollars a year and saved roughly forty three dollars after living expenses.¹⁰

In 1923 the Chinese Immigration Act was replaced with legislation under the same name that virtually barred Chinese entry into Canada, sometimes better known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, which wasn’t repealed until 1947, the same year Chinese-Canadians gained the right to become citizens.¹¹ The inability to become citizens closed off professions that required citizenship such as pharmacy, law, teaching and politics.¹² With exploitatively low earnings and the inability to participate in positions with higher pay and power, Chinese-Canadians were being systematically pushed into poverty. Here is where the Chinese restaurant boom occurred. Business ownership became the most important means of upward mobility for Chinese-Canadians.¹³ David Lai explains in his book Chinatowns: Towns within Cities in Canada, Chinese Canadians started to exhibit entrepreneurship both in how it is generally understood: analogous to business ownership in the context of a market economy, but also in a broader sense, one synonymous to problem solving, more specifically “to get around problems that others find impassible”.¹⁴ And that was what they did, they found permittable ways to survive in a social climate that was actively advocating for their disappearance. “To get around problems that others find impassible.” What better way could be said to describe this time in Chinese Canadian history with policies intentionally made to create additional obstacles? Professional limitations and financial obstacles like the head tax, paired with legalized discrimination in cities like Vancouver and Toronto––where Chinese restaurant owners were subject to police harassment, as well as violence and vandalism––set the tone for anti-Chinese sentiments across the country.¹⁵ There was even a highly publicized case in 1912 where a white waitress accused a Chinese restaurant owner in Moose Jaw of assault that led to legislation in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and British Columbia, prohibiting Chinese business owners from employing white women.¹⁶ The only way this could get any harder is if their primary avenue for upward mobility was in an industry where thousands of years in a pre-globalized world would have groomed Chinese and Canadian food preferences to be completely different! Oh wait, that’s exactly what happened.

SARAH STORY: So the type of Chinese food that you serve here...

LOK KI MAK: It’s Canadian-Chinese, not the real, real Chinese food. I don’t mind, I’ll still eat some of those, I still eat it. It still tastes good and all that but you know what? I’m just getting sick of it.

SARAH STORY: How is it different? And why is different, the Canadian Chinese food?

LOK KI MAK: I would say here the food is mostly about a lot of meat. A lot of meat. And the taste. Some of the things that we know that Canadians, they won’t like it. Just like the shrimp paste, the shrimp. A very strong taste––not just like taste, the smell too. And like the dry salted fish, not everyone likes the smell. Some people smell and think it smells like a dead whatever that is, but for us, it’s very delicious. The smell, it doesn’t matter. If you like that thing, doesn’t matter, that smell, you think it always smells good. For me, that salted fish and shrimp paste, ohhh... When I smell that, oh my goodness. Delicious. You can smell it. You know it! But that's more like the real Chinese food: oyster with vegetables, we have like duck and chicken, and then we have this like real pork belly, Chinese style, and some lobster but real Chinese food you need to spend a lot of time to do it.

QUINN MACNEIL: Lok notes the difference between Canadian-Chinese cuisine and “real” or traditional food eaten in China multiple times, and even again when debating what food to make for Sarah.

LOK KI MAK: I wonder what am I going to make you? Shanghai noodles?

SARAH STORY: Well, what do you like?

LOK KI MAK: I think Shanghai noodles is good. Singapore chow main is pretty good. But that’s based on the menus. But if you want something real, real Chinese, I can make you a very easy one with just egg. That’s from back home and I think that’s very tasty. I love egg myself. Egg can make many dishes but, I mean, if you want to make a real, real good baked thing. I mean you can do it at home too. It’s very easy. And I’m sure kids will like it too. I like to mix it up with rice; it’s always good but let me... It’s like steamed. Chinese people like to do steam dishes all the time because it’s more healthy that way.

SARAH STORY: So this is something that you would have eaten in your home?

LOK KI MAK: Yeah, in my home as a kid.

SARAH STORY: What’s the name of it?

LOK KI MAK: Just steamed egg. We just call it steamed egg. Just get the water boiling and just cover it. Turn it on. And now get the eggs ready. Let me get this egg. So we don’t get the egg right now. Just like the last one. Just do the tip. [Sound of egg cracking] And try to just make it whole. The reason is because we mash it with water. We keep this [shell] we have good use of it. And add seasoning.

SARAH STORY: And so what do you use for the seasoning?

LOK KI MAK: Salt. Yeah, salt. Chicken broth. Mix a little bit. And then I need a drip of vinegar. You won’t taste any vinegar at all but it just like... The way that I learn it. It just needs it. You need the main very important thing is the oil. The reason that you need oil is like, keep it smooth. So what happened is this is what I learned. I learned it from one of those like you know––news. Hong Kong news. They kind of have a reporter go ask different many famous chefs. This is very common dishes for Chinese. I mean Hong Kong, I'd say Hong Kong area. I don't know if all the Chinese will usually do it. But then you got a shared experience and now you also know some of my method right. My parents teach us, and this also one way that I learned from them. One egg to one and a half water is a perfect match. Usually I’ll add water in but this time I’ll add milk. One egg, one and half water. Because if you use the egg [shell] you can tell exactly how many. When you steam that water on top will drip it back on. And then you’ll ruin it if you don’t have saran wrap to cover it. Also this way you keep the air going through and then the top looks way better. And so now it’s boiling and like this for five minutes so we’re looking for five minutes and then we’ll be checking that again.

SARAH STORY: Those are beautiful.

LOK KI MAK: Right, let’s get a fork for you. Yeah if you want help yourself. Try it. You can have leftovers and bring it home [laughs].

QUINN MACNEIL: Lok is acutely aware that the traditional food of his home country and what his restaurant serves are quite different. But it was never about accurately replicating the cuisine from China, it was about winning over western palates. Ann Hui explains in her book Chop Suey Nation how dishes like ginger beef, chicken balls, and chop suey are what most Canadians have understood as the food that is eaten in China, when in fact this food is not what is––or ever was––eaten there.

LOK KI MAK: Of course, you think about Canadian Chinese food [laughs], just like here. We're not serving real Chinese food. Of course we need to fit in people’s meat in here, kind of merge it together. We found out people here, they like sweet and sour stuff. That’s like, not mainly... For me, sweet and sour stuff back home, I don’t always have it––only if I go to like fast food, McDonalds, ketchup –– sweet and sour yes, that’s a very high chance. But I mean like mainly, if I go to original Chinese, traditional Chinese restaurant, no.

QUINN MACNEIL: By appealing to flavours more familiar to the Canadian palate, and removing those that were met with distaste, a cuisine that was Chinese, without originating in China, was born.¹⁷ In a climate where “authentic, real, natural” foods, medications, and experiences are being increasingly valued, these restaurants are suffering for seemingly not checking the boxes. But this food is how Chinese Canadians gained their Canadian customers, and is “real” through the cross-cultural circumstances that it was invented in. Ann Hui describes Chinese-Canadian cuisine as “a food that was created out of discrimination and racism and ingenuity and creativity. It tells such a fascinating part of our history here in Canada.”¹⁸

KENT DAVIES: And we’re back. Thank you to Lok Ki Mak for sharing his story. It’s a fairly unique story, but also fairly similar to many Chinese Canadians. And what I found interesting in Mak’s story is how the community involved with this one restaurant in Steinbach went on to establish restaurants across Manitoba.

JANIS THIESSEN: Very much so, and so you have, again, a parallel to the episode we did on “Burger Town,” in that you have folks from the same community looking out for each other and stepping in to provide the kind of financial capital and business expertise that they didn’t have access to otherwise because of racist polices or practices throughout the province.

KENT DAVIES: Yeah, and I think that plays into another thing about these restaurants; they’ve always been a staple within communities. They’ve built up this kind of nostalgic quality. You have this one Canadian-Chinese food restaurant that you frequent with your family for a long period of time. The other thing that I found fascinating is just talking about this particular episode and topic, because there is such an abundance of Chinese-Canadian food restaurants in communities, I’ve heard that they’ve used them as a place of gathering for communities where basically served as a court in smaller communities, or as a place where to hold elections, or the reception for weddings, and stuff like that. In very small communities, this is where you go.

JANIS THIESSEN: This was the case with the Hawkins Cheezies factory in Belleville, Ontario. The owner and manager of that Cheezies factory would go to the same local, the only local Chinese restaurant in Belleville, and they would sit at the same table for lunch every day and it was a place where they could conduct business. So people knew if they weren’t there at the factory, well, they could find them at the Chinese restaurant. And it was just... Yeah these are places that become really important to people’s work lives. My father, in the early years of his work life in Carman, Manitoba, was a mechanic and would have breakfast every day at Rick’s Café, which was the Chinese restaurant in Carman at the time, and he’d just go there for Pepsi and toast. Every single day. And so you’d get to know people, not just the folks who were running the place, but also the regulars who were there on a daily basis, and it just becomes a place of community.

KENT DAVIES: Do you have a favourite Canadian-Chinese food restaurant?

JANIS THIESSEN: Yes, but it keeps changing. So, for the period of time that I lived in Steinbach, I grew up with Lee’s Village restaurant. The one that is interviewed here.

KENT DAVIES: Oh, so this was a kind very special thing.

JANIS THIESSEN: Oh, you bet. Loved that restaurant. And then Crystal Garden opened across the street from it, almost. So we started going there. And then when I moved back into Winnipeg, Sun Fortune is where I’ve been going lately with my brother and sister, and my mother. And just... They do a really lovely Peking duck which I like a lot because I like duck. And then I’m a big fan of their hofan, their wide flat noodles. But just around the corner from my house is Hong Hing, which is a complete hole-in-the-wall. It’s got maybe four tables. They have not invested in any sort of atmosphere, but the food is great and they give you a free fried rice if you order more than twenty bucks worth, and it is good stuff.

KENT DAVIES: Well, thanks for joining me again, Janis.

JANIS THIESSEN: Thank you.

KENT DAVIES: And you out there. Thanks for listening.

KENT DAVIES: You have been listening to Preserves: A Manitoba Food History Podcast, produced by myself Kent Davies. Hosted by myself, Kent Davies and Professor Janis Thiessen. This episode was written and narrated by Quinn MacNeil. Interview by Sarah Story. Kimberley Moore creates the photos and images that accompany each podcast. Our theme music is by Robert Kenning. Preserves is recorded at the University of Winnipeg Oral History Centre. You can check out the OHC and all the work we do at oralhistorycentre.ca. For more Manitoba Food History Project content, information, and events go to www.manitobafoodhistory.ca. We’re also on Twitter, Instragram and Facebook.

SOURCES

¹ Ann Hui, Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants, (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre 2019).

² Krishnendu Ray, The Ethnic Restaurateur. (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016).

³ David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns within Cities in Canada, (Vancouver BC: UBC Press, 1987): 44.

⁴ Lily Cho, Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 8.

⁵ Anthony B. Chan, “Chinese-Canadians,” Canadian Encyclopedia. May 22, 2019. Accessed September 5, 2019.

⁶ Ann Hui, “Part one: Searching for Huang Feng Zhu,” Globe and Mail, November 12, 2017. Accessed, September 5, 2019.

⁷ Lai, Chinatowns, 94.

⁸ Hui, Chop Suey Nation, 8.

⁹ Lai, Chinatowns, 8.

¹⁰ Arlene Chan, “Chinese-Head Tax” Canadian Encyclopedia. September 8, 2016. Accessed, September 5 2019.

¹¹ Anthony B. Chan, “Chinese-Canadians,” Canadian Encyclopedia. May 22, 2019. Accessed September 5, 2019.

¹² Bill Cunningham, “Chinese-Canadians enter the professions” CBC News. July 14, 1957. Accessed, September 5, 2019.

¹³ Josephine Smart, “Ethnic Entrepreneurship, Transmigration, and Social Integration: An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Restaurant Owners in Rural Western Canada,” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, (2003): 320.

¹⁴ Smart, “Ethnic Entrepreneurship,” 312.

¹⁵ Ann Hui, “Part one: Searching for Huang Feng Zhu” Globe and Mail, November 12, 2017. Accessed, September 5, 2019.

¹⁶ Lai, Chinatowns, 94.

¹⁷ Hui, Chop Suey Nation; “Chop Suey Nation,” CBC Books, January 25, 2019. Accessed, September 5, 2019.

¹⁸ “Chop Suey Nation,” CBC Books, January 25, 2019. Accessed, September 5, 2019.