'Chinamen, wherever we go': Chinese nationalism and Guangdong merchants in British Columbia, 1871-1911

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 77, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 475-503

  Stanley, Timothy J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0040082148     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/CHR-077-04-01     Document Type: Review

References (147)

1. On the founding of the organization, see Lo Jung-Pang, ed. and trans., K'ang Yu-Wei: A Biography and a Symposium (Tucson: University of Arizona Press 1967), 181
2. and L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns: Chinese, Politics in the Americas and the 1911 Revolution (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990), 45-51
3. Ma identifies Vancouver as the city where it was founded. This view is contradicted by Edgar Wickberg, ed., From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada, A History of Canada's Peoples Series (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1982), 74
4. On the importance of Kang Youwei and the Bao Huang Hui in Chinese history, see Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton 1990), 224-68
5. See also Jerome B. Grieder, Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan 1981), esp. 77-132
6. For examples in China, see the Compilation Group for the History of Modern China Series, The Reform Movement of 1898 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press 1976)
7. and Shanghai Shi Wenwu Baoguan Weiyuan Hui, Kang Youwei yu Bao Huang Hui [Kang Youwei and the Bao Huang Hui] (Shanghai: Renmin Chuban She 1982)
8. Although there is a considerable Chinese literature on Kang, Lo's biography remains one of the few works in English. More attention has been paid in English to his disciple Liang Qichao. See, for example, Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1971)
9. and his more recent Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890-1911) (Berkeley: University of California Press 1987)
10. On overseas Chinese, see Yen Ching Hwang, The Overseas Chinese and the 1911 Revolution (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press 1976)
11. To be consistent with China scholars, I use the Mandarin Pinyin romanization system for Chinese characters and proper names, except when citing from works that use other systems. However, for the names of merchants and their firms, I have followed local usages. See Wickberg, From China to Canada, 272-94
12. Readers should note that migrants from China in turn-of-the-century British Columbia spoke various dialects of Cantonese or Hakka, rather than Mandarin. On the difficulties this poses for romanization schemes, see Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne Publishers 1991), xvi-xvii. In some instances, to avoid confusion I have supplied other commonly used romanizations in brackets. In British Columbia the term 'Chinese' was originally an ascription, rather than a subjective identification. Technically, it did not even describe the citizenship of migrants from China who were subjects of the 'Qing' Empire until 1911. Since not all migrants from Guangdong spoke dialects of Cantonese, the term 'Cantonese' is also inappropriate. Accordingly, I have used the term 'Chinese' only when speaking of a nationalist identity, 'Cantonese' for the linguistic group, and have otherwise used the term 'Guangdong' to refer to people who originally came from Guangdong province. The latter term is not intended to convey an overarching identity
13. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso 1983)
14. On the timing of popular nationalisms, see the discussion in Spence, The Search for Modern China, 230-8. Anti-foreignism or ethnic chauvinism were not new in China, but feelings of attachment to the state as nation were
15. For accounts of the Bao Huang Hui in Canadian historical literature in addition to Wickberg, From China to Canada, see David T.H. Lee (Lee T'ung-hai), Jianada Huaqiao shi [A History of the Overseas Chinese in Canada] (Taipei: Zhonghua Da Dian Bianying Hui 1967), 273-96
16. Anthony B. Chan, Gold Mountain: The Chinese in the New World (Vancouver: New Star Books 1983), 92, 124
17. Peter S. Li, The Chinese in Canada (Toronto: Oxford University Press 1988), 6
18. Also of interest is Jin Tan and Patricia E. Roy, The Chinese in Canada, Canada's Ethnic Groups Series (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association 1985), esp. 6
19. The creation and reification of mutually exclusive social categories, or racialization, is integral to racism. See Robert Miles, Racism, Key Ideas Series (London: Routledge 1989)
20. and David Theo Goldberg, Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning (Oxford: Blackwell 1993)
21. On the ways racism shaped Chinese-Canadian communities, see Lee, Jianada Huaqiao shi
22. Chan, Gold Mountain
23. Li, The Chinese in Canada
24. See also The Women's Book Committee, Chinese Canadian National Council, Jin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women (Toronto: Women's Press 1992)
25. and Denise Chong, The Concubine's Children: Portrait of a Family Divided (Toronto: Viking 1994)
26. The most detailed study of the merchant economy in British Columbia is Paul Yee, 'Chinese Business in Vancouver, 1886-1914' (MA thesis, University of British Columbia 1983)
27. See also his 'Business Devices from Two Worlds: The Chinese in Early Vancouver,' BC Studies 62 (summer 1984): 44-67
28. and 'Sam Kee: A Chinese Business in Early Vancouver,' BC Studies ibid. 69-70 (spring-summer 1986): 70-96
29. See 'The Chinese Bourgeoisie and the Anti-Chinese Movement in the United States, 1850-1905,' Amerasia 11, 1 (1984): 1-34. The term 'merchant' often refers to a wide strata of people, most of whom are small shopkeepers or artisans, tailors and the like. The term also includes a higher strata of wealthy entrepreneurs who carried out extensive international trade, were active as wholesalers and labour contractors, and had close business ties with the Anglo-European economy as well. Pomerantz refers to this upper strata as a bourgeoisie or 'merchantry.' The former term seems misleading in the Canadian context, especially during the nineteenth century, although it may be more accurate in the twentieth. The latter term seems little improvement over the term 'merchant.' Accordingly, throughout this paper, unless otherwise specified, I use the term 'merchant' to refer to this wealthy strata alone
30. Increasingly, studies of migrant communities in Canada stress continuities with Europe. See, for examples, Bruce Elliott, Irish Migrants in the Canadas: A New Approach (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1988)
31. and Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smith, Irish Emigration and Canadian Settlement: Patterns, Links and Letters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1990)
32. For other examples, see Joy Parr, The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns, 1880-1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1990)
33. and Franca Iacovetta, Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1992)
34. Such continuities are now being stressed in survey histories. See, for example, Margaret Conrad et al., History of the Canadian Peoples, vols. 1 and 2 (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman 1993)
35. On the totalizing nature of the assumption of European centrality, see Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopff, 1993)
36. See also Paul Gilroy, 'Nationalism, History and Ethnic Absolutism,' History Workshop Journal 30 (autumn 1990): 114-20
37. Until recently, this assumed centrality was also evident in English-language survey texts on China, which started discussion of the modem era with the arrival of Europeans. See, for example, the classic text, John K. Fairbank et al., East Asia: The Modern Transformation. A History of East Asian Civilization, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1965)
38. On merchants in China and their roles as members of the élite, see William T. Rowe, Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796-1895 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1989). The literary tradition may have made members of the educated élite aware of racialization
39. See Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1992), esp. 1-57
40. See also Ma, Revolutionaries, Monarchists, and Chinatowns, 25-7
41. and Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press 1995), 225-6
42. See David Chuen-yan Lai, 'Home County and Clan Origins of Overseas Chinese in Canada in the Early 1880s,' BC Studies 27 (autumn 1975): 3-29
43. On the racial and economic stratification of British Columbia society as a whole during the same era, see Robert Galois and R. Cole Harris, 'Recalibrating Society: The Population Geography of British Columbia,' Canadian Geographer 38, 1 (1994): 37-53
44. The Galois and Harris account needs to be read with Lai's in order to appreciate the diversity homogenized under the 'Chinese' census category. Although this pattern of local, rather than national, identities is similar to that of many European migrants, the linguistic and ethnic differences among Guangdong migrants are probably greater. For example, compare Lai with John Zucchi, Italians in Toronto: Development of a National Identity, 1875-1935 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1988)
45. A composite photograph of the prominent members of the association in 1900, giving their names and positions, is reproduced in Paul Yee, Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver (Vancouver and Seattle: J.J. Douglas and University of Washington 1989), 46
46. See Timothy J. Stanley, 'Chu Lai,' Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13: 1901 to 1910, 198-9
47. See City of Vancouver Archives [CVA], Sam Kee Company Papers, Add. MSS 571, and Paul Yee, 'Sam Kee.'
48. See also [Bob Chan], 'San Ji huo Chen Cai, 1857-1921' (unpublished manuscript)
49. and its English translation 'Chang Toy or Sam Kee (1857-1921),' Dr. Theodore Y. Chang, Vancouver, British Columbia
50. Yeh Ch'un t'ien xiansheng chuanji [Biography of Yip Sang] (Hong Kong: np, [1973]). Extensive information on Yip's business dealings can be found in CVA, The Yip Family and Yip Sang Ltd. Papers, 1895-1989, Add. MSS 1108
51. See Yee, 'Sam Kee,'
52. and 'Chinese Business in Vancouver.' See also University of British Columbia Library, Special Collections Division, Alexander W. Cumyow, Personal Papers, c. 1900-35
53. The photograph of Bao Huang Hui officials reproduced in Yee, Saltwater City, 46, shows Yip Sang and Yip On as two different people, although their features suggest a close family connection
54. See also 'Noted Chinese Exile,' Vancouver Province, 10 April 1899, 2. That Yip went over to meet Kang, as well as the subsequent location of the association's headquarters in Vancouver, suggests that the association may have been his idea
55. See Yeh Ch'un t'ien
56. On Chu Lai's citizenship, see 'The Chinese Enter a Protest,' Victoria Daily Colonist, 11 June 1902, 3
57. Cumyow was born at Port Douglas in 1861. Most of the wealthy merchants who publicly supported Kang were British subjects. See 'They Stood in Fear,' Province, 12 April 1899, 5
58. See also L. Eve Armentrout Ma, 'Chinatown Organizations and the Anti-Chinese Movement,' in Sucheng Chan, ed., Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1991), 147-69
59. See Canada, Fourth Census of Canada, 1901, vol. 1: Population (Ottawa: S.E. Dawson 1902), 406. Thus, about 800 people in Victoria initially joined the association
60. See also Lo lung-pang, K'ang Yu-wei
61. See, for example, Kang's 1899 circular, 'Gao Ge Bu Bao Huang Hui Shu [Notice to the Empire Reform Association of Every City],' in Kang Youwei yu Bao Huang Hui, 92
62. This view was also articulated by other members of the Chinese diaspora and captured the imaginations of several generations of Chinese intellectuals. See, for example, Benjamin I. Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1964)
63. 'Ying shu deng bu shang min qing Cixi gui zheng zhe (Petition from the merchants of various English ports asking Cixi to restore power),' Kang You Wei yu Bao Huang Hui, 3
64. The best discussions of legal restrictions are found in Patricia E. Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 1989)
65. and Bruce Ryder, 'Racism and the Constitution: The Constitutional Fate of British Columbia Anti-Asian Legislation, 1884-1909,' Osgoode Hall Law Journal 29, 3 (1991): 619-76
66. There is an extensive literature on these restrictions. See W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1978)
67. Roy, A White Man's Province
68. and Kay J. Anderson, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1991)
69. Also of interest is Gillian Creese, 'Exclusion or Solidarity? Vancouver Workers Confront the "Oriental Problem,"' BC Studies 80 (winter 1988): 24-51
70. and Donald Avery and Peter Neary, 'Laurier, Borden and a White British Columbia,' Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes 12,4 (summer 1977): 25-34
71. On American experiences, see Pomerantz, 'Anti-Chinese Movement'
72. Sucheng Chan, Asian America
73. and Sucheng Chan, ed., Entry Denied
74. See, respectively, 'Qualification and Registration of Voters Act,' Statutes of British Columbia, 1874, no 12, 51
75. 'Land Amendment Act,' Statutes of British Columbia, 1873, no. 1, 1
76. and 'Electoral Franchise Act,' Statutes of Canada, 1885, chap. 40, 20
77. See Timothy J. Stanley, 'White Supremacy and the Rhetoric of Educational Indoctrination: A Canadian Case-Study,' in J.A. Mangan, ed., Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialization and British Imperialism (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press 1990), 144-62
78. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 4 May 1885, 1589
79. British Columbia's formidable geography and coastal rain forest required large amounts of labour and capital to dear land and build roads before capitalist development could occur. In this respect, construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway was simply the largest infrastructural proiect. See Martin Robin, The Rush for Spoils: The Company Province 1871-1933 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1972)
80. In the late nineteenth century especially, these realities created a demand for male labour. For a more recent view, see Gillian Creese, 'Class, Ethnicity and Conflict: The Case of Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1880-1923,' in Rennie Warburton and David Cobern, eds., Workers, Capital and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers (Vancouver: UBC Press 1988), 55-85
81. See also the discussion of the formation of Chinatowns in David Chuen-yan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns within Cities in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press 1988), 34-5
82. In many ways the nineteenth-century Zhigongtang lodges functioned similarly to the lodges of the Knights of Labor, as described by Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan Palmer, Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880-1900 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 1982). Taking the Zhigongtang oath would have been inconsistent with Kang's loyalty to Guangxu
83. Stanley, 'Chu Lai,' 198-9. Chu Lai provided the test case for the legal challenge to the legislation
84. The context of the times is well described in Patricia E. Roy, 'A Choice between Evils: The Chinese and the Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia,' in Hugh A. Dempsey, ed., The CPR West: The Iron Road and the Making of a Nation (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre 1984), 13-34
85. A facsimile of the originaletter in reproduced in David Chuen-yan Lai, 'The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in Victoria: Its Origins and Functions,' BC Studies 15 (autumn 1972): 53-67
86. See, William T. Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889 (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press 1984), esp. 318-21
87. See Wang Gungwu, 'The Study of Chinese Identities in Southeast Asia,' in Jennifer Cushman and Wang Gungwu, eds., Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press 1988), 23-32
88. People of diverse origins in China - for example, those from Sichuan as well as Guangdong - could claim this identity. In this respect, classical Chinese transmined much the same sense of identity as Latin did in pre-Modern Europe. To be a 'Huaren' was to be 'civilized' or 'cultured' in its eighteenth-century sense, rather than to have a political identity. Compare Ci Hai Dictionary (Hong Kong: Zhonghua Shuju 1947), 1144
89. and Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana Press 1976), 87-93
90. See also John Fincher, 'China as Race, Culture and Nation: Notes on Fang Hsiao-ju's Discussion of Dynastic Legitimacy,' in D.C. Buxbaum and F.W. Mote, eds., Transition and Permanence: Chinese History and Culture. A Festschrift in Honour of Dr. Hsaio Kung-ch'üan (Hong Kong: Cathay Press 1972), 59-69
91. On racializations, see Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China
92. See Lai, 'Home County and Clan Origins of Overseas Chinese.'
93. See Lee, Jianada Huoatiao shi, 176-94
94. See also Edgar Wickberg, 'Chinese Organizations and the Canadian Political Process: Two Case Studies,' in ]organ Dahlie and Tissa Fernando, eds., Ethnicity, Power and Politics in Canada (Scarborough: Butterworth 1980), 172
95. and Edgar Wickberg, 'Chinese and Canadian Influences on Chinese Politics in Vancouver, 1900-1947,' BC Studies 45 (spring 1980), 44
96. Lai, 'Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association,' 60, 66
97. See Tamara Adilman, 'A Preliminary Sketch of Chinese Women and Work in British Columbia 1858-1950,' in Barbara K. Latham and Roberta J. Pazdro, eds., Not Just Pin Money: Selected Essays on the History of Women's Work in British Columbia (Victoria: Camosun College 1984), 53-78
98. Canada, Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration (Ottawa: The Commission 1885), 12-13
99. According to Lai, the CCBA witnessed the selling and redeeming of girls. See 'Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association,' 59
100. See also Adilman, 'A Preliminary Sketch.'
101. On the conditions endured by Chinese Canadian women generally, see The Women's Book Committee, Jin Guo: Voices of Chinese Canadian Women
102. For a twentieth-century account of labourer/small-merchant-class women, see Chong, The Concubine's Children
103. On the role of patriarchy in modern Chinese history, see Judith Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press 1983)
104. The role of gender in both the construction of white supremacy in British Columbia and in the responses of racially oppressed groups warrants further exploration. Some suggestive approaches can be found in Hazel Carby, '"On the Threshold of Woman's Era": Lynching, Empires, and Sexuality in Black Feminist Theory,' Critical Inquiry 12, 1 (1985): 262-77
105. and Vron Ware, Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History (London: Verso 1992)
106. See Wang Gungwu, 'Patterns of Chinese Migration in Historical Perspective,' in Wang Gungwu, China and the Overseas Chinese (Singapore: Times Academic Press 1991), 3-21
107. Wang Gungwu, 'Political Chinese: Their Contribution to Modern Southeast Asian History,' Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12, 1 (March 1981): 1-14
108. See Him Mark Lai, 'Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association/Huiguan System,' in Chinese Historical Society of America, Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 1987 (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America 1987), 13-51
109. See the correspondence books in Sam Kee Company Papers, Add. MSS 571, vols. 1-4
110. See also the correspondence books in Yip Family and Yip Sang Limited Papers, 1895-1989, Add. MSS 1108, vols. 5-16. Yip's Japanese correspondence was also in Chinese. See ibid., vol. 5, file 1; vols. 16, files 2 and 9. Cooperation between merchants from Guangdong in different parts of the world is evident as early as the 1880s. Labour contractors for the CPR worked closely with Hong Kong-based companies. During the mid-1880s, following legislation barring immigration from China to the United States, Canada became a major point of entry for would-be migrants to the United States. Such migration could only have been organized by British Columbia merchants in active cooperation with their American counterparts and in other parts of the world such as Hawaii. Indeed, organizing such an immigration scheme would have been little more than an extension of existing labour-contracting practices
111. See Yip Family and Yip Sang Limited Papers, vols. 89-91. These boxes contain a collection of letters written between 1902 and 1919. Some of these letters were written to Yip himself; others were letters that he had been asked to forward, but whose recipients could not be located
112. See Timothy J. Stanley, 'Schooling, White Supremacy and the Formation of a Chinese Merchant Public in British Columbia,' BC Studies 107 (autumn 1995): 3-27. As Chong, Concubine's Children, shows, teahouses and restaurants depended upon 'public' women, waitresses and hostesses, for their success
113. Adilman, 'Preliminary Sketch'
114. See 'Bao Huang Nu Hui zhi li zhen xiang, 1902,' in Yip Family and Yip Sang Limited Papers, vol. 104, file 1. In addition to showing people's names, someone, presumably one of the Yip children, has annotated the photograph, identifying two of Yip's wives and 'Aunt Nellie.'
115. See, for example, David Chuenyan Lai, 'The Issue of Discrimination in Education in Victoria, 1901-1923,' Canadian Ethnic Studies/Etudes ethniques au Canada 19, 3 (1987): 47-67
116. See also Timothy J. Stanley, 'Defining the Chinese Other: White Supremacy, Schooling and Social Structure in British Columbia before 1923 ' (PhD thesis, University of British Columbia 1991)
117. In 1901, only sixteen 'Chinese' children attended the provincially controlled Victoria School Board schools. See 'To Exclude the Chinese,' Daily Colonist, 14 Feb. 1901
118. See 'A Chinese School,' Daily Colonist, 18 Jan. 1899, 6. Lee, who was the Victoria immigration interpreter, was prominent in the establishment of the school and in the leadership of the Victoria community
119. On 'Chinaman' as racist epithet and stereotype, see Ward, 'John Chinaman' in White Canada Forever, 3-22
120. On the racism of Chinese nationalism, see Dikötter, The Discourse of Race, esp. 123-5
121. On the meaning of qun, see Hao Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, 95 ff
122. In 1908 this school was reorganized as the Chinese Public School (Huaqiao Gongli Xuexiao, lit. 'Overseas Chinese Public Elementary School') and placed under the direct control of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
123. See Lim Bang, 'Weibu Zhonghua Huiguan zhi yuange ji Qiao Xiao chuanli zhi yuanqi (The origins of the Victoria Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the reasons for the creation of the Overseas Chinese School),' in David T.H. Lee, ed., Jianada Weiduoli Zhonghua Huiguan/Huaqiao Xuexiao chengli qishiwu/liushi zhounian jinian tekan [Special memorial publication marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of Canada's Victoria Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the sixtieth anniversary of the Overseas Chinese School] (Victoria: Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association 1960), part 4, 1-5
124. William T. Rowe, 'The Public Sphere in Modern China,' Modem China 16, 3 (July 1990): 309-29
125. Yet Ch'un T'ien xiansheng chuanji, 3, gives this date. A Bao Huang Hui school was established in Victoria during the same era
126. Sam Kee Company Papers, vol. 31, contains two dozen Chinese textbooks dating from between 1907 and 1928. These texts are inscribed with the names of Chang's sons, who attended the school. The Yip Family and Yip Sang Ltd Papers, 1895-1989, boxes 96-104, contain a more extensive collection of textbooks from the same era, including a complete set of Shanghai Commercial Press's Republican Series of School Textbooks
127. For the history text, see Zhonghua Benguo Lishi (A History of China), vol. 3 [1911]
128. CVA, Add. MSS 571, vol. 31
129. In the themes it emphasized - the Opium War, the Self-Strengthening Movement - this history is similar to more recent accounts, suggesting that nationalist narratives are remarkably stable. On science teaching at the school, see, Sing Lim, West Coast Chinese Boy (Montreal: Tundra Press 1979), 26
130. Notebook from the Aiguo Xuetang, CVA, Add. MSS 571, vol. 30, file 10, 1. This is a series of essays or letters from the school. It appears to be an advanced student's copybook, although it may have been a teacher's lesson book. Some of the characters are crossed out, others circled as if for correction or emphasis. The script, all in the same hand, is at first careful and later becomes more flowing. A letter written to a Black boxer urging him to recognize the power of the whites and surrender his title would appear to be addressed to Jack Johnson, who was Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1908 to 1915. It is also suggestive of the extent to which racial hierarchies were accepted by the Bao Huang Hui leadership. I am indebted to Yang Chang for his assistance in investigating this source
131. See Sam Kee Company Papers, vol. 30, file 10
132. 'Wengeba [sic] Aiguo Xuetang Zheng Xin Lu (Accounts of the Vancouver Patriotic School),' unpublished MS, 1909
133. See Gordon Won Cumyow in Daphne Marlatt and Carole Itter, eds., Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End, Sound Heritage Series, vol. 8, 1 and 2 (Victoria: Minister of Provincial Secretary and Government Services, Provincial Archives 1979), 17
134. It is possible that at least three more of Yip's sons attended in 1909, but the names entered in the accounts do not correspond completely with the names entered in the family records. Some of his sons would have been too old to have attended the school in 1909, and some had not yet been born or were too young. Eventually Yip's daughter Susan, after graduating from the BC Normal School and Columbia University Teachers College, became principal of a private girls' school in Canton. See Yeh Ch'un t'ien xiansheng chuanji
135. According to his will, Yip left $100 to each of his sons, except for one who predeceased him. He left nothing to any of his daughters. Since his estate was worth over $78,000, these bequests were token. This makes the omission of the three daughters all the more suspicious. See British Columbia Archives and Records Service, BC Supreme Court (Vancouver), Probate files, 1893-1941, GR 1415, p. 12451
136. Chang Yun Ho in Marlart and Itter, Opening Doors, 40
137. Yen, Overseas Chinese
138. and Marie-Claire Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 191-1937, trans. by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la maison des sciences de l'homme 1986)
139. On the meaning of this term, which only became current in the 1880s and 1890s, see Wang Gungwu, 'Patterns of Chinese Migration in Historical Perspective.'
140. That such responses are not unique to the Chinese reinforces my larger theoretical point. See, for example, Zucchi, Italians in Toronto
141. For examples of this 'sojourner' claim, see Jean Barman, The West beyond the West: A History of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1991), 135
142. and Tan and Roy, The Chinese in Canada, 6
143. Contrast this view with Anthony B. Chan, 'The Myth of the Chinese Sojourner in Canada,' in K. Victor Ujimoto and Gordon Hirabayashi, eds., Visible Minorities and Multiculturalism: Asians in Canada (Toronto: Butterworths 1980), 33-42
144. and the theoretically sophisticated one of Anderson, Vancouver's Chinatown, all tend to ignore Chinese motivations and activities
145. See the testimony of Huang Xiquan before the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration
146. and of Won Alexander Cumyow before the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Subject of Chinese and Japanese Immigration into the Province of British Columbia (Ottawa: S.E. Dawson, Queen's Printer 1902)
147. Gilroy, 'Nationalism, History and Ethnic Absolutism'