Transcript
[00:07] KALUM NG: It is because of women leaders in the community that I was so connected to Chinatown as a youth.
[00:14] JEN SUNGSHINE: I have always seen Chinatown as a site of important organizing.
[00:20] EMILY TSANG: Constantly trying to figure out how to support other people and people supporting me, and I think that’s just how I view community to be. We do need that collective care.
[00:30] SCREEN TEXT: SUZHOU ALLEY WOMEN’S MURAL
digital stories
[00:38] SCREEN TEXT: Cultural Activism of the Diaspora
Intersection of Heritage, Community and Care
[00:43] EMILY TSANG: Hi, my name is Emily Tsang. I also go by the name WY, the initials to my Cantonese name, Tsang Wing Yu. My pronouns are she and they. I’m the Operations Coordinator for the Chinatown Cares Grocery Program at Hua Foundation.
[00:58] KALUM NG: Hi, my name is Dora Ng. My pronouns are they/them. I am a queer lion dancer, who lion dances in and out of Chinatown.
[01:07] JEN SUNGSHINE: My name is Jen Sungshine and I use she/her pronouns. I wear many hats in the community. I’m a member of VALU CO-OP, the Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative. Myself and David were both co-artistic directors of Love Intersections, a media arts collective that produces documentary film that centers the stories of QTBIPOCs.
[01:30] SCREEN TEXT: Why is it important to recognize women’s contributions in Chinatown through public art?
[01:45] KALUM NG: The program that my grandpa was volunteering for is led by all women. He’s the only man on the executive. Yeah. [Laughs] He spoke so highly of the women. So it’s because of them that my grandpa was connected to Chinatown, and it’s through that that I was connected to Chinatown.
Because of women leaders in the community that I was so connected to Chinatown as a youth.
My mom has been a very powerful influence on me. So she’s always had a very open mind to youth and their ideas. And she has a lot of trust for youth knowing what they want. (She’s a) role model for what kind of mentor I want to be. And there’s always my lion dance partner Vicky – relentlessly positive and such a believer. She’s the one who always says, “Let’s just try it!”
[02:33] EMILY TSANG: Often we aren’t talked about – Chinese Canadian women, especially in the history of Chinese migration into Canada. Because of the head tax and whatnot, it’s mainly men who are coming. The unpaid labour of women, stay at home moms or homemakers, for example, the unpaid labour that they put into their home is so important, but we don’t think about it because it’s unpaid.
[02:54] JEN SUNGSHINE: I think we take a lot of women, especially women of colour for granted. They don’t get the recognition that they deserve. Murals beautify a city. What I appreciate about this mural in particular is that it isn’t an attempt to artwash. One of the ways that it contributes to anti-gentrification efforts is that it makes this building have more value, right?
[03:24] KALUM NG: Having this mural having like a Chinese painting full of women and femme – it’s more accurate. It’s just a more accurate picture of what is the Chinatown community and what is the Chinatown history.
[03:37] SCREEN TEXT: What is your “why”?
[03:41] EMILY TSANG: The reason why I do the work that I do is because I want to keep serving seniors, especially through food. I always feel the big – the greatest privilege and the greatest honour, to be able to nourish our community seniors, even if I don’t know them personally, I’m happy that we’re able to provide food for them and provide produce for them, so they can lead healthier lives. And it’s my way of kind of giving back. Thinking back to like when my grandparents used to take me out for dim sum and whatnot and they made sure I was nourished. I think we’re showing our love for them just like they’ve always shown their love for us.
A lot of community activists coming into the neighbourhood trying to fight against different developments. It’s very inspirational, and I hope that someday I will be part of that bigger organizing group. But I think I like to do my own community organizing in the back. That’s how I do the work.
[04:31] KALUM NG: Where I learned kung fu, unfortunately, lion dance wasn’t one of the things taught. and when I tried to learn it from other places, that’s where I encountered so many gender barriers. And we want to teach and we just want everybody to have the opportunities that we kind of struggled. For many years, I was– I keep trying, but I was not able to find someone who’s willing to teach me. Girls don’t lion dance because they never have, it’s just the way we do things. It’s for the boys. Oh, women can’t lion dance because they menstruate and it’s unclean or something. There’s all sorts of reasons. Yeah, [laughing] that was, that was the thing.
[05:11] JEN SUNGSHINE: What I care about the most and what I do, at its core, is about creating and optimizing spaces for people to be recognized, accepted, loved, and most importantly, to forge collaborative relationships. I really want to contribute to a diversity of tactics and strategies where we can be better allies, be better activists, you know, to advocate for what’s right in the world.
[05:38] SCREEN TEXT: What does “community” mean to you?
[05:47] KALUM NG: Lion dancing kung fu is very good for building intergenerational community. It gives you a lot of opportunity for mentorship. Like, this kind of community gives you a chance to meet people of all ages, of all genders, and interact with them in a way that fosters building respect and understanding of each other. You need a big team. It’s really difficult to be a two-person team because you need drummers, you need cymbal players.
Every time a lion team goes out, it’s easily like thirteen, twenty people. You never feel lonely when you’re lion dancing, or if you’re in a kung fu school. So it’s a really neat way to connect with the community around you and get people curious about your culture. “And oh, what is this,” then we can kind of have conversations going. It breaks barriers that way as well.
[06:34] EMILY TSANG: The term community has changed for me over the years. At one point, it was just like, people doing things together. And I think that’s still very true. But community, I think, often for me, in my circles at least, it’s people who are like minded individuals working towards a goal or supporting each other. I think that’s just how I view community to be.
[06:55] JEN SUNGSHINE: Community once again, means relationships. Cultivating and building a world where we can develop elastic and fluid relationships with one another.
[07:05] KALUM NG: When people are denied the opportunity to participate in all these things, they’re also denied that all everything that I’ve described. That sense of community, that connection, that opportunity to participate in something that connects you to community and also to share your culture with others. Having these barriers, it’s something that we don’t want to see. It’s very unfair, and it’s harmful.
[07:29] JEN SUNGSHINE: How important it is to build social trust with one another. And we do that through collaboration across a broad demographic of people, working with different communities, ontologies, industries, disciplines, realities and experiences.
[07:46] EMILY TSANG: As much as we are individuals, I think we do need that collective care. It’s not just about self care, it’s about collective care, about checking in with people. Honestly, often, it’s just like, “Are you hydrated?” [Laughs]
“Have you drank your water today? Have you eaten?” It’s just constantly a lot of that, making sure people’s needs are met. We do that in different ways, in different capacities, and not necessarily just physically but also emotionally and intellectually and mentally, making sure we’re all at our best self and like making sure we all can all get there.
[08:14] SCREEN TEXT: What does an ideal Chinatown look like to you?
[08:23] JEN SUNGSHINE: I have always seen Chinatown as a site of important organizing and activism that necessarily also intersects with the Downtown Eastside and Hogan’s Alley organizing, right, because they’re all within proximity, and they’re all connected.
[08:41] EMILY TSANG: Have intergenerational spaces, have artistic spaces for younger generations to come in, create art and reclaim their Chinatown. And for seniors who live in the neighbourhood to be able to rest and socialize and do their thing and not feel like they’re alienated from this physical space that they’ve spent a lot of time in.
[08:59] KALUM NG: Chinatown to be a thriving community, where heritage and culture — it’s a core component, and it’s a place where that continues to grow and is passed down and it’s able to evolve and change, and also be a place of connection and community for people who want to go there as a place to connect to their heritage and that’s the vision and the hopes and dreams that I have for Chinatown. And so my connection to Chinatown now is to do anything that kind of helps the community build in that direction.