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Friday March 23 and Saturday March 24 at 7 pm you are invited to a free staged reading of Larry Wong’s new play, Empress of Asia, based on his original one act play: Siu Yeh – A Midnight Snack. The readings will take place at the Firehall Arts Centre at 280 East Cordova Street. From the Firehall Arts Centre:

“Can a young woman, born at the dawn of the 20th Century, find happiness with a husband true to the ways of the Qing Dynasty and 20 years her senior? Only after she endures two weeks in the Pig Pen, pays her $500 Head Tax on her arrival in Canada and satisfies his foot fetish.

The development of Empress of Asia has been supported through the Community Historical Recognition Program, Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

For more information, visit firehallartscentre.ca or call 604.689.0926

Read by: BC Lee, Minh Ly, Lissa Neptuno, Nelson Wong, Andrea Yu

Written by Larry Wong
Director & Dramaturg: Donna Spencer
Set and Video Consultant: Craig Alfredson
Lighting Consultant: Jamie Burns
Costume Consultant: Sabrina Evertt”

Larry is well-known in the Vancouver community for his involvement with the Chinese Canadian Military Museum, the Vancouver Historical Society and the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of B.C., for which he writes the informative column “Ask Larry” on their website. It’s very exciting to have a local expert write a play with Empress of Asia as the title, since it is such an important ship to the Chung Collection!

As mentioned above, the reading is free and open to the public- no advance tickets required. Definitely a great outing for Friday or Saturday night!

In honour of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, this month’s featured photograph is of an Irish family immigrating to Canada on the CPR steamship S.S. Montclare:

The photograph is captioned, “McKenna Family Coalisland S.S. Montclare,” which leads to the assumption that the family was probably from Coalisland in Northern Ireland. This photograph makes up part of the Clandonald material in the Chung Collection. This archival material tells the story of the settlement of Clandonald Colony in Alberta, which was a colony of immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1926-27. This was just one community in the prairies settled under the auspices of the CPR Department of Colonization and Development (search for more records related to this department.)

Supposing you wanted to figure out the names of these passengers, the source you would want to consult is the passenger list for the voyage. While the Chung Collection does have some passenger lists (for example, search for Montclare passenger lists) the most thorough source is microfilmed passenger lists, typically available at public libraries. You can also search immigration records through this database at Library and Archives Canada. Since this photograph is dated 1927, search for the surname McKenna, in 1927, on the ship Montclare, a number of possible McKenna family members are listed.