Lee, Albert
Albert Lee is a Halifax-based photographer and creater of the photo exhibit Growing Up Chinese in Halifax (Nova Scotia Museum, 1997). His father Shew (Chuck) Lee was the first Chinese boy to grow up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the late 1920s, 18 year-old Chuck was sent to China to marry his 14 year-old betrothed, Sui Fa Kung. During the Exclusion Period (1923-1947), Sui Fa Kung lived in China apart from her husband, raising their two children (one of whom passed away) and looking after the family’s farm through periods of famine and political turmoil. In 1949, after The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 had been repealed, Chuck traveled by boxcar to Vancouver, British Columbia to meet his newly-arrived wife and 14 year-old daughter. Albert describes this as the happiest time of his father’s life because the family was finally together. The Lees had three more children in Halifax, including Albert. Albert recalls that their household was a hub of activity in the small, tight-knit Chinese community.
The Lee family gathers together on a verandah. The age gap between Albert Lee’s elder sister Nancy and her younger brothers shows how the Exclusion Period affected the composition of some families. Albert sits cross-legged in between his two brothers, Robert and Herb. On the bench, from left: Willy, Nancy, Fenton (on Nancy’s lap), Sui Fa Kung and Chuck Lee.
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