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Tracing back 115 Generations


Ming Sun Reading Room Society.
Pages  1    2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10
is seeing it's twilight ...
Founded in 1925, the Ming Sun Reading Room and similar organizations provided a place where ideas could be shared and discussed.

My generation is the last link to Vancouver's Ming Sun Reading Room, and to Vancouver's pioneer Chinese Canadian community.

Even the old name for Vancouver is seldom heard these days. It used to be called "Saltwater City" (ie. "Hahm Sui Fahw") by the early Cantonese settlers to Vancouver.

And how our City has benefited from being the crossroads of the Global Village!

Vancouver has enjoyed the interaction and sharing of ideas and cultures - and the Ming Sun Reading Room Society, along with many other diverse organizations like it, has helped shape our City to become the synergetic creative enclave with cultural fusion(s), ideas and openess.

More on the Ming Sun Reading Room Society on page 8
and assorted documents on page 9 .

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Photo of founding Members [Dec. 20, 1925]. Grandpa is at the back row.

I've scanned in anniversary photos of the Ming Sun society over the years, and of particular interest is what the photos show. Or better, what it doesn't show.

The photos (on the next page) describe a graphic depiction of the effects of some of anti-Chinese laws passed at the turn of the last century in Canada. The photo at the top of this page (1925 founding photo) shows exclusively, males only (two years after the Canadian "Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923"), and shortly afterwards, the appearance of First Nations' women in 1929, ( Chinese men married First Nations women due to the inability to bring Chinese spouses over).

Decades later, the appearance of children occurred...in particular, after 1947, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, thus allowing Chinese women to emigrate to Canada.

Chinatown Heritage Alley

This was where it all began for Vancouver's Chinese community, on the old mud flats of the water body now known as "False Creek".

A "CHA" website was prepared a number of years ago, under the auspices of the Chinese Benevolent Association. I had been invited to help design the old website, but the finished effort quietly disappeared after the webhosting company when out of business.

But our GenerAsian website here has managed to cobble together the English language portion of the old CHA site.

And here it is for all to view: GenerAsian: Chinatown Heritage Alley

Wong Family Genealogy ... going back 1,000 + years
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