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Hearth of Gold
By Janet LumbJanet's personal story of the Festival, my mother and I.
Originally published in the Vancouver Rice Paper, Dec. 2000
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" Mom, are you home?" as we answered the phone screaming down the hall.
"No, I'm putting my face on. " she said as she rushed around the house.
I am busy as a musician, sax player, film composer and activist, and the director of the Montreal Asian Heritage Festival. My mother, Jean Betsy Lumb is busy at a helm of a nuclear family of 23 including 9 grandchildren. She has more energy than the whole family put together and is continuing to improve on her wellbeing. She can now touch her toes at the tender age of 81. My mother is the source of my inspirations.
I was raised in what appears to be a typical Chinese Canadian family. My parents ran a grocery store, a laundry business and a Chinese restaurant.
My mother was always very proud how the family was raised. She took that responsibility to include the divine order of our births.
" I have 3 boys and then 3 girls, " she said mischievously.
There are many immigrant families, which experience a " frozen-in-time " phenomena. This phenomenon refers to a " diaspora " experience and arrival to the new land, where traditions are kept "frozen" and are then passed on from generation to generation. Our grand father, who was a " Toisan " from Canton, came to Canada in 1899 with traditions from the Ching dynasty. Confucian rituals and superstitions were considered sacred. Authority figures were to be respected. Family obligations were assumed.
When I was young, my neighborhood in downtown Toronto was rough. My parents were unforgivably strict. They were clever and kept us off the streets. We were busy. Every school night, the 3 girls either had Chinese school from 5-7 p.m., girl guides or baton lessons. On weekends, we worked at the restaurant, the Kwong Chow and went to Chinese dance lessons at the family Tong association. After these activities, we had to be home for supper.
"Your father works hard. Suppertime is the only time the family is together. I want you here for supper!!!", scolded my mother.
Values that my mother cherished were ingrained in us: the importance of family and the community, respect for others and respect for ourselves. This meant that we were to be " proud to be Chinese." Little did we know that she was born in Nanaimo, B.C., as Jean Betsy Wong and that she had to walk past a white school to go to a segregated school attended only by the Chinese, Natives and Japanese. She was a tomboy and played in a baseball team made up of her 12 siblings. She quit school at 12 to help the family pay for her older brother's tuition.
At 16 she left Vancouver for Toronto to work at my aunt's grocery store. My mother then opened a grocery store a year later. The store did so well, she brought the rest of her family to Toronto. At the age of 20, she met my father. They were chaperoned on their first and only date. They went out for ice cream and the next day, the arranged marriage was settled. Because of the laws at that time, my mother who was Canadian-born lost her citizenship when she married my father in 1939. He had arrived in Canada from Canton in 1911. It was in 1947, that the Chinese gained the right to vote. It was only after this period, that my mother applied to re-gain her citizenship.
In 1957 at the age of 38, she was the only woman on a chosen committee of 20 Chinese delegates from across the country to meet with...Prime Minister Deifenbaker. The delegates were to persuade the government to change the immigration laws that separated Chinese families. These immigration laws were a result of the Exclusion act that ended in 1947. However, in 1957, families continued to be separated. Only Chinese individuals who had been granted citizenship could bring their families over to Canada and only those who were over the age of 65 or under 18 could come into the country. My mother had helped the speaker Mr. Wong chosen by a committee. to prepare for the speech.
" I already knew the speech well", said my mother, " because I helped Mr. Wong, practice it over and over again. I was asked to sit beside the Prime Minister because I was the only woman. He kept asking me to repeat everything. I repeated the speech word for word, because I knew it by heart. The meeting was a success. "
" You saved the day, Jean!!!" said Mr. Wong.
My mother explains, " I didn't know at the time, that Diefenbaker was partially deaf. Mr. Wong was sitting beside his bad ear and I was sitting beside his good ear! " My mother always laughed when she told this story. She became the unofficial mayor of Chinatown from that point on.
I was child " number 5 " in the family and called by my Chinese name Jing. My personal conflicts pitted the family demands against the ties that I had with my Canadian friends. I was traumatized. These crises evolved into issues then reasons for my eventual involvement with the Asian Heritage Festival. As a teenager, the cause of my angst became the basis of my defiance against my family.
My mother sighed in surrender." I planted turnips but I got a carrot. If I said the moon was round, Jing would always argue with me. "
Meanwhile, my mother was organizing Chinese community dance classes, saving Toronto's Chinatown from being demolished, working full time at the restaurant and constantly heading up various community and political activities. In 1976, she was to receive the Order of Canada for her work as a " defender of Chinatown" and as the only woman representing the Chinese community in the appeal to change the immigration laws.
By the time I had moved to Vancouver, I was beginning to carve a context that marked me for life and that played a further role in my decisions to take on the Festival. My rebellion towards my family was re-directed towards social politics. For 10 years, I played at numerous benefits, demonstrated at various political rallies, worked with juvenile delinquents and with the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. I moved to Montreal and began working with autistic children, played with many bands and began exploring my music through other disciplines.
I was approached by Bernard Nguyen to start an Asian Heritage Festival in 1995. Initially, I was more intrigued by the possibilities of finding musicians for my film work.
Needless to say, the Festival has evolved into another entity for me. The Festival goals are ambitious. Our mandate is to break barriers and to build intercultural, interdisciplinary and intergenerational bridges. Many of the ethno-cultural communities are ghettoized, especially in Montreal, because of the immigration policies and the precedence of the language issue. Institutional changes are occurring however slow, racist or ignorant. The social climate is improving and the dialogues are beginning. One of my dreams is that there will no longer be a need for an Asian Heritage Festival.
The role that I chose to take with the Festival is based on my passion in the arts and my activities in the community. This community activity includes my interests in the politics of the cultural issues surrounding " being a Chinese Canadian ". Most importantly, the Festival is creating a sense of the family and a sense of community. My many interests are now unified as one.
The importance of family and community, respect for who we are, respect for others and a belief in human nature are all values that have been passed on to me from my parents. I am still far from achieving these goals. My ghosts, rages, neuroses, passions, illusions, and frailties continue to haunt me. I have always strongly identified with my mother but I do wonder about my superwoman complex.
I have fond memories of my father who had arrived in Canada owning nothing but the shirt on his back. Little did I realize that the gold he came to find was found at the hearth of our family...my mother.