- New work
- Chinatown Gardens
- Latest work
Click on each image to view a larger version. All dimensions in inches.
Artist's statement;
reviews: Globe & Mail,
Sing Tao Daily (Chinese
or English)
){kind=small} Bitter melons (2005) 16x36 (explanation) |
) Bitter melon (2005) 16x20 |
) Melons (2005) 16x30 |
) My Mother's Garden (2005) 20x30 |
) Squash (2005) 12x24 |
) Two squashes (2005) 14x20 |
) Squash blossoms (2005) 20x24 |
) Cucumber blossoms (2005) 16x24 |
) Green peppers (2005) 14x22 |
) Green tomatoes (2005) 12x20 |
) Bottle squashes (2005) 20x28 |
) Hairy melons (2005) 20x26 |
) Bottle squash (2005) 14x16 |
) Tomato blossoms (2005) 20x16 |
) Dahlia on Huron St. (2005) 20x30 |
) Dahlia on Grange Ave. (2005) 16x18 |
) Double dahlias(2005) 16x20 |
) Night lilies (2005) 20x32 |
) Darcy St. irises (2005) 24x30 |
) Chinatown peony (2005) 20x20 |
) White lilies (2005) 24x30 |
) Persimmons #3 (2005) 12x22 |
) Fall Persimmons (2005) 12x22 |
) Persimmon (2005) 12x12 |
) Persimmon #2 (2005) 10x10 |
) Bottle squash (2005) 20x24 |
) Blossom (2005) 14x20 |
) Melon (2005) 14x24 |
) Red dahlias on Grange Ave. (2005) 24x30 |
Artist's statement
"When I was growing up in Hong Kong, our neighbours were mainly women and children. Most of their husbands were working overseas. Some of them hadn't seen their families for decades. Back then, I had never understood or bothered to find out the reasons why. Only after we immigrated to Canada did I start to learn the reasons and the impact on those families...
Prior to the completion of the C.N. railway, Chinese workers were recruited to complete the final sections through the Rockies. These workers were recruited because no others were willing to do this work. Many Chinese workers died while working to build the railway. Many of those men were from the Tai Shan area of southern China, where my parents had also come from. Soon after the completion of the railway Canada imposed the Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act. These Acts resulted in many Chinese families in Canada and abroad, suffering lengthly separations and financial hardships. Many men were never able to reunite with their families, and died alone in Canada.
Most of the men who came to Canada were young and single. By the time they were able to save enough money to marry, many of them had already passed middle age. The women they eventually married were mail-order brides: young women who sacrificed themselves to help their families. Some unlucky women ended up with much older men about whom they knew little. Some ended up with alcoholic and abusive husbands. Because of the age difference, many women became widows, who wound up living alone after their children had moved away. Due to the language difficulty these women still live in the Chinatown area.
One can identify some of them by the little gardens they grow to help out financially and to maintain their culture. They grow plants which remind them of the Chinese homeland they left long ago. One sees peonies, lilies for the spring, bottle squashes, bitter melons, hairy melons, snow peas for the summer. Some women had seeds sent all the way from China. I have been interested in these little gardens for the past several years. To most passers by they might look humble or even unsightly. But I feel a strong connection to those gardens because the lives of their keepers.
With this show I like to honour the Chinese who came years before me and fought for the rights we enjoy now. In tradional Chinese paintings fruit and squash were popular subjects both for their simple beauty but also for their symbolic meaning. Life is a bit like the bitter melons: one needs to appreciate the bitterness to fully enjoy the sweetness."
The meaning of the bitter melons
Many years ago, bitter melons were not as readily available in Chinatown as now. Some of the early Chinese immigrants started to grow them from seed sent from China. Now bitter melons are available almost year round. But every year my mother would grow them in our backyard garden with loving care, even though the plants produced only a few melons. I sometimes wondered why she did all that work for something so inexpensive to buy.
Not until recently did my mother tell me that, since she left her village in China when she was fifteen years old, she doesn't remember much about her home town anymore. It made me think that growing bitter melons might be the only connection she had to the home she left behind and was never able to get back to.
Bitter melons are very bitter when young and green. Once they ripen they become more yellow and less bitter, with a sweet and cool after-taste.
In this painting, I used the bitter melons as a metaphor for the lives of Chinese immigrants' struggles and hardship and the bitterness in life in Canada. Only in later life were they able to taste the sweetness of their labour. In the painting, the two large and one small bitter melon represent the immigrant family. Bamboo symbolizes the strength and resilience of my Chinese ancestry. The red ribbon is a symbol of honour and respect for the early Chinese immigrants who came before me and the sacrifice they made in order for us to enjoy our rights as Canadians. And the broken stem on the left is used to symbolize their determination to live in this new land.