Chung

For a limited time, you will be able to experience a special exhibition at the Chinese-Canadian Military Museum entitled “Chinese-Canadian Veterans: Loyalty to Country.” The exhibition will explore the history behind those Chinese-Canadians who fought for the Canadian military, despite being subjected to discriminatory laws. The exhibition will run from January 24 to January 27, so be sure to make it down to the museum during that time.

For information on hours and location, see the Chinese-Canadian Military Museum website.

Vancouver has lost a vibrant member of its business, philanthropic and Chinese-Canadian communities. Milton Wong passed away on New Years Eve after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Like Dr. Chung, Wong was the son of an immigrant Chinese tailor, who ran the family business out of a historic building in Vancouver’s Chinatown at Carrell and Pender. Their shop, Modernize Tailors, opened in 1913. Wong later purchased the building to restore it and convert the upper level to housing for seniors.

Wong was an alumnus of UBC and was active with both UBC and with Simon Fraser University. UBC has written up a tribute here, and Todd Wong has written some nice personal reminiscences and a round up of news articles here.

Have you noticed more moustaches around than usual this month? It’s “Movember,” which is a fundraising and awareness campaign for prostate cancer research. And so our monthly featured photograph shows some moustached men in the Chung Collection:

There are a couple of very fine moustaches in this photograph! This photograph is from a handwritten travel journal by A. E. Blake and H. A. Jamieson across Canada and to the United States of America, via the Canadian Pacific Railway and other railway routes, in the year 1900. Blake was British, and in a letter enclosed in the journal, he explains that he wrote up the journal of his adventure and also published several columns in The Field, a British leisure magazine which is still in print. Some clipped articles that he wrote about this journey in the The Field are also enclosed in the journal. The photographs from the journal, all digitized and available online, show the men hunting, fishing, camping and travelling by horse and wagon.

This photograph is captioned in the journal, “5 scouts : Harry, Kelly and Dick.” The photo obviously depicts 8 men, and in the journal Blake describes meeting another party, including a lady who was a “good sport” and “had done her fair share of the work.” Perhaps it was the lady who took the photograph of the men.

Remembrance Day is this Friday, and so it is a good time to reflect on a Vancouver icon with a C.P.R. connection.

Winged Victory, or “Angel of Victory” statue at Vancouver’s Waterfront Station is a Vancouver icon with the Canadian Pacific Railway company connection. The statue was commissioned and placed by the C.P.R. in 1921 to commemorate the 1,100 C.P.R. employees who lost their lives in the First World War. A plaque was added to the statue after World War II to commemorate the employees lost in that war as well. The statue, weighing 3,000 pounds, was sculpted by Coeur de Lion MacCarthy who was born in London but moved to Montreal in 1918. As explained on the History of Metropolitan Vancouver, the scratch marks on the statue originate from some well-meaning locals who gave the statue a scrubbing in 1967, not understanding that the “dirt” was actually part of the patina that develops naturally on bronze statues.  As featured earlier this year on the Miss 604 blog, many stunning photos of the “Angel of Victory” can be found on Flickr if you are unable to visit it in person.   

Both C.P.R. employees and ships participated in both World Wars- try searching the Chung Collection for the keywords “world war” for related records.

If you would like to join UBC students, faculty and staff for our Remembrance Day service, details are available here.

The photo above is courtesy of Flickr user BriYYZ and is used under a Creative Commons License.

The Chung Collection exhibition room will be closed to the public on Monday Nov. 7. Our apologies for this inconvenience.

Please note that this closure also effects the Rare Books and Special Collections Charles Van Sandwyck exhibition.

Cross posted with the New at RBSC blog.