Free AlliterAsian by Allan Cho Page A

Chinese—Toishan and Cantonese—he could not speak English, so, like many Chinese bachelors, he spent his days in Chinatown. During his lifetime, only a few people appreciated his wisdom derived from a textured, often misunderstood, life that transcended geography, language, and the colour of one’s skin. “The Chinese and Aboriginals saw Vancouver’s Chinatown as a refuge,” explains Bill Chu. He chairs the Canadians for Reconciliation Society, a grassroots movement to honour and acknowledge the history of Chinese and Aboriginal people in British Columbia. “From the folks I ran into, they usually refer to that as their common experience, that Chinatown served as a place of refuge for both, because both are subjected to discrimination.” An understanding of the history of Chinese-Aboriginal relationships in Vancouver is now fairly minimal, underlining the importance of revisiting that part of history. Chu continues, “I think there’s a deep need to understand that piece of history again.”
    Throughout the course of a friendship that grew from their shared participation in Chinatown’s musical societies, Ling, just one year older than Gwan, learned that the two shared a similar familybackground. Both had spent significant parts of their childhood in the Cantonese opera community in Kaiping city, also known as Hoiping, in Guangdong province, China.
    Ling’s father was a scriptwriter for a Cantonese opera company in Kaiping. Gwan’s adoptive family was part of the city’s thriving Cantonese opera community. Gwan, born in 1929 near Hastings and Carrall streets to Aboriginal parents, was separated from his birth family as a boy. The details of the separation—and whether it was, in fact, abandonment—are unknown.
    According to what Ling gathered from casual conversations with his friend, a Chinese man named Mr Gwan adopted the boy and named him Wah Kwan Gwan, the name he lived with for the rest of his life. His Aboriginal birth name is unknown. The adoptive uncle took the boy with him back to China, to Kaiping city where Mr Gwan’s brother owned cinemas and restaurants, and the entire family was also deeply involved in Cantonese opera.
    By the time Gwan returned to Vancouver in the 1950s, he was a young man in his twenties. Even though the return to Vancouver marked a return to his birthplace, Gwan would live the rest of his life on the margins of Canadian society. After years spent in China, he had lost all connections to his Aboriginal roots. While not fitting in entirely within his adopted community, his inability to articulate in English further isolated him and restricted his ability for economic and social advancement. Consequently, Gwan did not have steady work and relied on social assistance and adhoc housing arrangements provided by Chinatown community members to sustain his livelihood.
    Gwan spent his days in Chinatown where his fluency with the Cantonese language and interest in performance art helped him connect with the local Cantonese opera community. He frequentedthe Ching Won Musical Society, and the chairman temporarily rented him a room in his home. Gwan used the skills learned from his adopted family in Kaiping to help mount local Cantonese opera productions. He worked backstage, and he eagerly shared his extensive knowledge of the intricate traditional rituals around costuming and props with younger performers and stagehands.
    Gwan’s contributions and commitment to the opera community went largely unacknowledged. He was often left with the opera-related grunt work that few others wanted to do.
    â€œWhen you go out to all the opera groups in Vancouver, nobody is interested in the backstage. The backstage is a very dirty job, a lot of heavy moving, and nobody appreciates it,” says Paul Cheng, who used to work with Gwan backstage during Jin Wah Sing Musical Association productions in the 1990s. “People wanted to put [Gwan]