Item 10 - Interview of Chow Quen Lee

137 MB (1 file) : mp3 ; 0 hr., 59 min., 57 sec.

Audio recording of interview with Chow Quen Lee and her son (Yew W. Lee, who served as the interpreter), conducted by Vivienne Poy in Ottawa, ON. Interview mainly in Hoy Ping (Kaiping) dialect, Cantonese and English.

From Transcripts [Extended notes] compiled by Vivienne Poy:

Lee Chow Quen, (dependent), immigrated in 1950, interviewed in Ottawa

• Born in Hoiping, 1911. Went to school in the village. The girls and the boys were at separate schools, and in fact, in different villages. Only those with money could afford to go. The girls were not allowed to talk too much. The family had nine children, 2 girls and 7 boys.
• Mrs. Lee’s Grandfather had many businesses - import-export of a variety of goods, such as kerosene (from the States), foodstuff, dried fish etc., production of peanut oil (pressed by hand), buying and selling of grains, metal tools. All the sons went into the family businesses. They were established in Changsha, Hong Kong and Canton (Guangzhou) They were in very big business. As a young girl, Mrs. Lee had helped in taking the cash in the business in Changsha. All the family lived in the same vicinity in 6 houses.
• Mrs. Lee’s father was the no. 2 son. Many of the brothers came to North America, but many also went back because of discrimination. One of the brothers went to Shanghai University, taught school and university, and represented China in Swimming in the Olympics. Mrs. Lee believes that her father came to Canada as a merchant because there was no record that he ever paid head tax. He died in Ottawa when she was 5 years old. He was known as a translator. His bones were shipped back to China.
• Hers was a “blind” marriage. Her husband came to Canada in 1913 paying $500.00 head tax. He was also from Hoiping. He was 38 when he married Mrs. Lee who was 19. Mrs. Lee said he was handsome and good-natured. Her family figured that if he was from Gum San, he must be well off. There was the myth that everyone from North America was rich. Age was of no importance. She really didn’t have a choice whether she wanted to get married or not. After the marriage, Mr. Lee came back to Canada.
• Mr. Lee had many [siblings]. Other sons went to the States and to Mexico. Mr. Lee worked very hard in Canada, sent money home, but a lot of it went to the brother in Mexico because he needed money for his business. Mrs. Lee blamed this for a lot of their suffering. The remaining family lived together in China, the mother-in-law, the daughter-in-laws and the children. Those brothers who were overseas tried to send money home for their support. Because there wasn’t enough money to go around, she even had to share a room with her mother-in-law. On each return, Mrs. Lee would get pregnant with another child.
• During the Sino-Japanese war, and the civil war in China, there was no communication between her and her husband for a period of about 13 to 14 years. Mrs. Lee was on her own to struggle for the survival of her children. She worked and was able to but some land to farm, (which was taken away just prior to her coming to Canada), and she grew vegetables. Some members of the extended family went to cut grass, dry them and sell them. Some went to cut firewood. They would use shrimp paste to cook turnips that they grew for food. When there were extra turnips, they would dry them and keep them for food. This was a very hard life for a woman who had never laboured as a young girl before.
• Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947, and Chinese were given citizenship in 1948. Mr. Lee got his citizenship right away and went back with the intention that he might choose to stay in China . However, he saw the civil war raging and decided to bring his entire family to Canada. During that time, Mrs. Lee gave birth to their youngest son.
• Mrs. Lee immigrated to Canada in 1950 with the entire family. The family owned a restaurant Capital Cafe close to a big arena in Sudbury. It was also near the railway station, so business was very good. Mrs. Lee was helping with washing dishes, but because of the standing, her feet became very swollen, so she needed to do something else. She wanted to look after the cash register, but Mr. Lee doubted that she could manage without the knowledge of English. Despite that, she learnt all the necessary words to cope, including the names of the cigarettes they sold. She was good in math, and she knew what things cost, and how much they should be sold for. She managed very well even during lunch hours when they sold hundreds of lunches. Business prospered. It was a good thing that she came to Canada to help, otherwise, everything would have been left to the waitresses.
• A lot of the business was from miners who would have their lunch pails filled for them. These miners were mostly single men with meal tickets who looked to the Chinese restaurant as a centre for their social life, where they could meet and have their food. There were 30,000 men working in mining in Sudbury’s hay day. There were altogether 5 or 6 restaurants in the area.
• The business became so profitable that the Lees opened another restaurant, China House, with Mr. and Mrs. Lee running one each. They brought a lot of relatives over from China to help out, and the eldest daughter’s husband also helped in the business.
• Mr. Lee worked until the day he died at the age of 72. He died of a concussion on the back of his head. Mrs. Lee was [suspicious] that it was foul play, but there was no proof. After he died, her own children were not interested in the restaurant business, so it was sold to her son-in-law, while she still had some financial interest in it, She bought an apartment building and rented that out to get by. She sent her younger children to school in Ottawa. Since then, the boom in mining in Sudbury is gone. In the early 80s, around 40,000 thousand people were layed off in Sudbury.
• Mrs. Lee still owns a house in Sudbury, but lives in Ottawa in her own apartment most of the time, where she’s near her younger son and his wife. Always the business woman, she says that they should have bought property in Ottawa when her 2 younger children went to school in Ottawa in the 70s, but they didn’t, and unfortunately, the properties they had in Sudbury has devalued greatly.
• Mrs. Lee reminisced about her difficult life. She spent her early years struggling to raise her children in China, and when she was widowed, she was again left to raise her teen-age children on her own.