Henry Tsang

This is an odd but worthwhile book. It is the text of a walking tour of Vancouver streets that tells the story of racist violence in the young city; it is also a well-researched and presented popular account of the social friction between 'white', indigenous, Chinese, Japanese and Sikh populations that lived in the area around the turn of the 20th century for reasons that included pursuit of natural resources, a gold rush, railway construction and varied money-making. The oddity of the book is that it seems to serve distinct readerships: it is an illuminating narrative illustrating uneasy multicultural co-existence but at the same time a meta-account of how that story has been written, constructed and presented, which presumably has a smaller pool of potential readers. A third section is a group of essays about related topics - historic racial unrest in Washington State, for example, and reflections on present-day aspects of racism - but written for a more intellectually engaged and diverse readership. The large number of archival photographs (some colourised) and brief fact-filled sketches are reliable touchstones for readers (or tour-takers) who likely had never heard of this past, and may well inspire some to delve further into their history (as well as musing about historiography more generally). The essays may encourage some readers to examine their own views and experiences.… (meer)

Catalogue of exhibitions held at 4 galleries in Vancouver, BC. Other events included poetry readings and public talks. The exhibition examined 'Hong Kong's "return" as an act of global exchange, in terms of sovereignty, capital and labour.'

(Abstract from Introduction by Scott Toguri McFarlane and Henry Tsang)

Dates of exhibition: February 11 to March 15, 1997

Poetry Readings: jamila Ismail and Pingkwan Leung, hosted by Jim Wong Chu

Public Lectures featuring Ackbar Abbas, Rey Chow, K.C Kwaicheung Lo, Pingkwan Leung, Mary Suiyee Wong, and Yanchi Choi… (meer)