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Edited: "The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain" translated by Wanda Joy Hoe (Talon $18.95)
Review by Beverly Cramp
“For over three weeks we have been docked in the harbour of this new land, but we have not been able to set our feet upon the land,” wrote Dukesang Wong in 1880, a Chinese migrant on board a ship held up by Portland, Oregon authorities who said the newcomers might have diseases. “We who hold cleanliness so high and propriety so dear, to have the kinds of diseases that those white authorities say—it is totally unworthy of them. Left here in the squalor of this deck as if we are animals, even less than dogs!”
he educated and erudite Dukesang Wong kept diaries, which have become the only known first-person accounts from a Chinese worker during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, especially through B.C.’s perilous Fraser Canyon.
Some of Wong’s surviving diary entries have now been published in The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain.
Wong started life as the entitled son of a magistrate of the Imperial Court of China upon his birth in 1845. But his family lost everything when his father was killed and the family reputation was mysteriously ruined.
Even though he had studied philosophy and history, Wong was reduced to wandering China to look for tutoring positions for ten years before being compelled to seek his fortune in ‘Gold Mountain,’ the nickname of the Chinese for western parts of North America that they believed to be a place of great prosperity. This perception was likely stoked by agents working in China for the Canadian transcontinental railway to lure Chinese workers with get-rich-quick schemes.
The reality for the tens of thousands of Chinese seeking work in North America would prove to be treacherous, ill-paid labour and racism from white settlers. Having gotten over here, it often took years, if ever, for Chinese immigrants to save enough money to get back to their homeland once they realized what was in store for them building railroads or doing other menial labour in Canada. But rebellion, famine and poverty continued to be common in China in the latter half of the nineteen century, also making it difficult to return.
Wong describes working himself to exhaustion.
“My soul cries out,” Wong wrote after he made his way to B.C. and joined the Chinese railroad crews. “Many of our people have been so very ill for such a long time, and there has been no medicine nor good food to give them.
“There has been word among the employing company that we are not good workers and do not work enough for the schedules and plans of the railway owners. How does anyone work when so ill?”
Wong eventually saved enough to buy into a relatively prosperous tailoring business in New Westminster and later bring a wife, Lin, to Canada with whom he raised a family.
Wong’s last diary entry in the book is a happy one as he finally gets the daughter he yearned for after the birth of eight sons. “It is still the feast of the full moon,” he notes. “My fate now has provided a daughter, a precious eighth child, a great joy for all this house! Her brothers will know this goodness and take care of her, loving her. She has come in my old age, a joyous sign, and she will be able to bring me pride, I know! It is good. Her brothers are men now, so she will be assured a good life. She will look after Lin when I leave these lands for the final journey homeward.”
Dukesang Wong died in 1931.
His diary entries were translated by his granddaughter, Wanda Joy Hoe (who used selections of Wong’s diaries for an undergraduate class at SFU in the mid-1960s). Commentary is provided by David McIlwraith for historical context.
Wanda Joy Hoe’s mother, Elsie was the much longed-for, and only daughter of Dukesang Wong. 978-1-77201-258-3
[BCBW 2020]
Review by Beverly Cramp
“For over three weeks we have been docked in the harbour of this new land, but we have not been able to set our feet upon the land,” wrote Dukesang Wong in 1880, a Chinese migrant on board a ship held up by Portland, Oregon authorities who said the newcomers might have diseases. “We who hold cleanliness so high and propriety so dear, to have the kinds of diseases that those white authorities say—it is totally unworthy of them. Left here in the squalor of this deck as if we are animals, even less than dogs!”
he educated and erudite Dukesang Wong kept diaries, which have become the only known first-person accounts from a Chinese worker during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, especially through B.C.’s perilous Fraser Canyon.
Some of Wong’s surviving diary entries have now been published in The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain.
Wong started life as the entitled son of a magistrate of the Imperial Court of China upon his birth in 1845. But his family lost everything when his father was killed and the family reputation was mysteriously ruined.
Even though he had studied philosophy and history, Wong was reduced to wandering China to look for tutoring positions for ten years before being compelled to seek his fortune in ‘Gold Mountain,’ the nickname of the Chinese for western parts of North America that they believed to be a place of great prosperity. This perception was likely stoked by agents working in China for the Canadian transcontinental railway to lure Chinese workers with get-rich-quick schemes.
The reality for the tens of thousands of Chinese seeking work in North America would prove to be treacherous, ill-paid labour and racism from white settlers. Having gotten over here, it often took years, if ever, for Chinese immigrants to save enough money to get back to their homeland once they realized what was in store for them building railroads or doing other menial labour in Canada. But rebellion, famine and poverty continued to be common in China in the latter half of the nineteen century, also making it difficult to return.
Wong describes working himself to exhaustion.
“My soul cries out,” Wong wrote after he made his way to B.C. and joined the Chinese railroad crews. “Many of our people have been so very ill for such a long time, and there has been no medicine nor good food to give them.
“There has been word among the employing company that we are not good workers and do not work enough for the schedules and plans of the railway owners. How does anyone work when so ill?”
Wong eventually saved enough to buy into a relatively prosperous tailoring business in New Westminster and later bring a wife, Lin, to Canada with whom he raised a family.
Wong’s last diary entry in the book is a happy one as he finally gets the daughter he yearned for after the birth of eight sons. “It is still the feast of the full moon,” he notes. “My fate now has provided a daughter, a precious eighth child, a great joy for all this house! Her brothers will know this goodness and take care of her, loving her. She has come in my old age, a joyous sign, and she will be able to bring me pride, I know! It is good. Her brothers are men now, so she will be assured a good life. She will look after Lin when I leave these lands for the final journey homeward.”
Dukesang Wong died in 1931.
His diary entries were translated by his granddaughter, Wanda Joy Hoe (who used selections of Wong’s diaries for an undergraduate class at SFU in the mid-1960s). Commentary is provided by David McIlwraith for historical context.
Wanda Joy Hoe’s mother, Elsie was the much longed-for, and only daughter of Dukesang Wong. 978-1-77201-258-3
[BCBW 2020]
