By sromkey on January 2, 2013
We’re huge fans of the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s lectures, and Chung Collection users may be interested in an upcoming evening lecture, to be held on February 19 at 7:30 pm at the University Women’s Club at Hycroft. The lecture on “Chinatown as a National Historic Site” will be given by historian John Atkin and city planner Jeanette Hlavach, on the process and significance of Vancouver’s Chinatown becoming a National Historic Site.
The VHF website has registration information, and information on all of their upcoming lectures and brown-bag sessions.
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By sromkey on December 20, 2012
In last December’s featured photo, we showed an elaborate Christmas dinner being served on the Empress of Australia. This December, we found another culinary feat on the high seas:
According to the photograph’s caption, the cake weighed 97 pounds! A challenge to bake anywhere, let alone on a ship. This photograph appears in a scrapbook from an Empress of Australia world cruise from 1927-1928.
A reminder that Rare Books and Special Collections and the Chung Collection will be closed over the holiday season- from December 25 to January 1 (more information on our holiday hours here). We look forward to seeing lots of visitors in 2013. There will be lots of exciting Chung Collection news in 2013, so please stay in touch with us!
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By sromkey on December 6, 2012
We frequently have vistors that count themselves amongst UBC Alumni so we’re thrilled that Dr. Chung and his collection has been profiled in Trek Magazine, published by the UBC Alumni Association. You can read the article online. It was written by Larissa Bjus, who also wrote a forthcoming book about Dr. Chung and the Chung Collection, which we will have available in the library soon!
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By sromkey on November 23, 2012
It’s that time of year in Vancouver when we’re all longing for the rain and mist to lift so we can see the beautiful, snowy North Shore mountains. While we wait, you can gaze upon this photograph instead:
In this turn-of-the-century photo, a group of unidentified hikers enjoys a snowy hike on a mountain. How do we know it’s a mountain? There are a number of photographs in the collection (found in Box 55) of the same group showing them ascending the mountain on their hike. There unfortunately is not any accompanying information with the photographs, so we do not know the exact location- but they could very well be on the North Shore given the scenery.
To see all the photos of these folks, a keyword search for “men and women on a mountain” will find them all. To find more photos of mountains, search for the keyword “mountain” with “photographic material” as the type.
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By sromkey on November 15, 2012
Thank you for your patience yesterday as we kept the Chung Collection exhibition closed for installation of new exhibits! There is still work happening today, Thursday November 15th and tomorrow, Friday November 16th in the back of the room and the back exhibits will remain unavailable during that time.
We’ll be adding interpretive signs to our new exhibitions soon. Stay tuned to the News blog for more information (and some behind-the-scenes photos!)
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By sromkey on November 13, 2012
Congratulations to Bowen Zhang who recently won the Jack Webster award for Best Reporting- Chinese Language for his piece “Heroes of Chinatown,” which aired on OMNI news! “Heroes of Chinatown” is about the soccer teams of the 1930’s and 40’s in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Bowen came to the Chung Collection and did some of the filming in the Chung Collection exhibition, and featured a number of Chung Collection photographs in the documentary piece. We have a copy of the DVD of the piece in both English and Mandarin for use by researchers at Rare Books and Special Collections.
To see photographs of the soccer teams in the Chung Collection, you can search for photos and the keywords “football” or “soccer.”
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By sromkey on November 9, 2012
The Chung Collection exhibition will be closed November 14 for the day, as we install new exhibitions. We’re really excited to tell you about these new additions- stayed tuned!
Our apologies for the inconvenience. Note also that the Chung exhibition, along with other branches of the library, is closed for Remembrance Day on November 12th.
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By sromkey on October 11, 2012
We often tell visitors to the Chung Collection that the collection contains material related to three main themes: Immigration and Settlement (especially Chinese-Canadians), the Canadian Pacific Railway, and B.C. history more generally.
What is so interesting about the collection is how these three themes intersect, which is demonstrated by this month’s
featured photograph, of a Chinese-style junk in the Inner Harbour in Victoria.
In the photograph, taken ca. 1920’s (based on the Johnson Street bridge sticking up in the background), a junk is docked in the Inner Harbour, while a number of people take a look at the foreign vessel from the dock- a really interesting intersection of B.C. history and Chinese culture and industry.
This image is on permanent display in the Chung Collection
exhibition room– if you’re new to the collection, the exhibition is free and open to the public! Check out the exhibition section of the website for details.
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By sromkey on September 25, 2012
In homage to the return of UBC’s this September students, this month’s featured photograph is of a student fundraising group in 1931. The group of Chinese Canadian students were raising funds through a concert for a new stadium at UBC:
The place to go for university history is the University of British Columbia Archives, which is a branch of the library (and neighbours to us here at Rare Books and Special Collections/The Chung Collection, so you can visit them and us at the same time!). On their website, they provide both an alphabetic listing and a chronological listing of UBC buildings. According to the entry for the Old Stadium (since demolished) the Stadium was built in 1931 including funds raised by the Alma Mater Society. This benefits from this concert of Chinese students were presumably included in that fundraising campaign. The photograph was taken by Yucho Chow Studio, who photographed many Chinese-Canadian groups and families.
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