Wong, Germaine
Germaine Ying Gee Wong was born in 1950, in the Toisan region of Guangdong province, China. Around 1900, her father, Wong Hong Tai, came to Canada as a seventeen-year-old. In 1949, he returned to China to look for a wife. He married Mark Suey Ngan, who gave birth to Germaine the next year. For four years, the family was separated while Wong Hong Tai returned to Canada to raise enough money to bring his wife and daughter over from China. Once reunited, the family made a living by running a laundry business in Verdun, Quebec. Germaine recalls the challenge of managing multiple religions, languages, and cultures during her childhood. She credits two figures in her early life, her parish priest and a former principal, for helping her navigate between her home life and her wider experience. Although she was often at odds with her mother during her youth, as an adult she began to appreciate her mother’s strength in the face of racial discrimination. After university, Germaine took a cataloguing job with the National Film Board. Over thirty years, she built her career there, becoming a producer, and staying until her retirement in 2007.
In this photo, Germaine’s Chinese school classmates skip rope in the church yard. Germaine’s parents sent her to the Montreal Chinese Catholic Mission, where the first Chinese Catholic priest in Montreal, Father Tou, led the congregation. Much to her dismay, she was also sent to Chinese school on Saturdays and Sundays, also at the church. Germaine felt that learning Cantonese was a waste of time because it was different from the Toishanese dialect she spoke at home and the lessons were taught through poetry instead of colloquial language. The nuns, Sister Woo and Sister Tam, would also teach their students Chinese folk dances. Germaine felt quite disconnected from this part of her heritage education, which she says felt foreign compared to her daily life in North America.
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