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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!

If you meant to register for the WCILCOS (World Confederation of Institutes and Libraries in Chinese Overseas Studies) conference here at UBC in May of this year but missed the deadline, there is good news: the deadline is extended until March 15. Past WCILCOS conferences “have been very successful in bringing librarians, institutes, and scholars in Chinese Overseas Studies together, not only in providing a platform for librarians to interact and exchange ideas with scholars and collectors, but also a platform for tackling issues in collection development, access, preservation, and information-sharing in the field of Chinese Overseas.”

You can check out the program here and registration information here.

One of the wonderful things about giving tours of the Chung Collection exhibition space is what I learn from the visitors, many of whom have backgrounds in history and knowledge to share. We recently welcomed students from Corpus Christi College, and their instructor, Dr. Jacqueline Gresko told me about the Chinese nursing sister in this photograph:

Dr. Gresko explained that the nursing sister was Teresa Fung, who was brought from China to Vancouver to serve in one of the clinics run by the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, a Montreal-based mission which had previously focused on missions and medical services in Canton, but eventually spread to include Chinese immigrants in Canada. There is an excellent history of their medical services for the Chinese populations in Montreal and Vancouver written by Hugette Torcotte, which is freely available online through the Canadian Catholic Historical Association Historical Studies website.