Ho, Yolanda
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.
In this interview, Yolanda Ho discusses her educational training, her immigration to Canada, and shares her insight about the differences between Canadian and Chinese attitudes towards education.
Yolanda was born in 1949 to a working class family in Hong Kong. Growing up, she had a close and friendly relationship with her relatives and neighbors. After high school, she went abroad to Taiwan for her undergraduate degree, and then to the United States for her master’s degree in Business Administration.
Her decision to move to Canada came after meeting her husband and getting married. They settled in St. John in 1974. She worked briefly as an accounting clerk before quitting to become a full-time mother after the birth of her first son.
Although she did not have much social interaction outside the Chinese community, she observed some differences between Canadian and Chinese culture through raising her two sons. Canadians had a much more relaxed approach towards parenting and formal education; they seemed to focus more on allowing children to explore their individualities. Chinese culture, on the other hand, promotes a more rigorous learning style using frequent testing and heavy workload as an educational method. Parents were also stricter with their children’s use of time. She believes there is something to gain from both learning styles. Canadians could incorporate more solid studying skills into their educational system and Chinese culture could leave more room for individuality.
At the time of the interview, Yolanda kept herself busy taking care of her two sons as well as volunteering as a Chinese teacher at the Chinese Cultural Associating of St. John. She believes that language is a good medium for people to honour their heritage.
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