Lee, Bing
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, Bing Lee retells they story of her life in China and how her struggles and triumphs have led her Canada.
Bing recalls a turbulent childhood affected by poverty and war. She lived with her mother and six siblings. Food was scarce, and fleeing from the Japanese troops during World War Two became a constant part of everyday life. Despite these hardships, Bing was able to attend school unlike many others. She knew it was a rare opportunity and as a result studied relentlessly throughout her adolescence eventually becoming a teacher.
She married at the age of 25 and moved to Hong Kong with her husband in hopes of a more prosperous future. After having children, Bing quit her teaching job to raise the children while her husband contributed financially.
The decision to move to Canada came when her son decided to go there for his education. Her husband was reluctant about the idea having faced discrimination in Canada first-hand. He felt that the career options for Chinese immigrants were limited to hard labour and working in restaurants. In his experience, uneducated white workers were always chosen over educated Chinese workers. In 1956, they were able to come to Canada as a family. Her son settled in Vancouver while the rest of the family went to Calgary. They opened a gift shop with their savings, but business was slow. Eventually they relocated to Montreal where they had better luck.
Although they had a few friends and even attended church, her husband felt isolated and had difficulty adjusting to Canadian life. After their retirement, Bing and her husband moved back to Hong Kong while her children remained in Canada. Her children felt that Canada was their home.
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