Koo, M.S.
Over 130 interviews with Chinese Canadian women were conducted for the book Jin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women. Produced in 1992 by the Women’s Book Committee of the Chinese Canadian National Council, Jin Guo was intended to fill the gap in historical accounts of Chinese Canadian women’s history. Researchers traveled across Canada to interview Chinese Canadian women of various ages and backgrounds. The book’s authors, Amy Go, Winnie Ng, Dora Nipp, Julia Tao, Terry Woo and May Yee, organized the book around themes and patterns that emerged across multiple interviews – feelings of isolation and culture shock upon arrival in Canada, memories of parent-child relationships, the importance of education, the working lives of women, discrimination, cultural identity, marriage and dating, family life, perspectives on aging and retirement, and examples community activism. The interviews conducted for this project are stored at the Multicultural History Society of Ontario’s archives. This collections database includes a large cross-section of interviews conducted for Jin Guo – in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
Ms. Koo spent most of her working life in Hong Kong raising seven children with her husband. While most of her adult children chose remained in Hong Kong, two went overseas to Canada and the United States.
In 1976 at the age of 60, she and Mr. Koo arrived at Victoria, British Columbia, where their married daughter had settled. Mr. and Ms. Koo decided that the fresh air in Canada would benefit Mr. Koo’s ailing health and allow for a speedy recovery. However, Ms. Koo spent a great deal of time attending to his medical needs for the first few years. She had little opportunity for a social life but enjoyed activities such as gardening.
After the passing of Mr. Koo, Ms. Koo returned to Hong Kong for several months, violating the conditions for her Canadian citizenship application. The government had made changes to their policy regarding the amount of time one could spend outside of Canada prior to applying for a Canadian citizenship. However, she eventually received the opportunity to take the Canadian citizenship test, and subsequently became a Canadian citizen.
At the time of the interview, she was 72 and remained active and traveled often between Canada, New York, Hong Kong, and China to spend time with her family.
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