Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community

by Paul Yee

Hardcover, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

AHC.YEP.SAC

Publication

Douglas & McIntyre (2006), Edition: 4th, 208 pages

Description

Saltwater City pays tribute to those who went through the hard times, to those who swallowed their pride, to those who were powerless and humiliated, but who still carried on. They all had faith that things would be better for future generations. They have been proven correct. Canada’s first Chinese arrived in British Columbia in 1858 from California. Almost all mee--merchants, peasants, and laborers -- and almost all from eight rural counties in the Pearl River delta in what is now Guangdong province -- they came in search of gold and better fortune, escaping the rebellions, flood and drought of their homeland. By 1863 over 4,000 Chinese lived in B.C., filling jobs shunned by whites: miners, road builders, teamsters, laundry men, restaurateurs, domestic servants and cannery workers. Between 1881 and 1885, thousands more arrived, most imported to build the transcontinental railway. They were to create, in Vancouver, Canada’s largest and most dynamic Chinese Community, known to its original inhabitants as Saltwater City.… (more)

Awards

BC and Yukon Book Prizes (Shortlist — Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize — 1989)

Language

Original language

English

Physical description

208 p.; 11.75 inches

ISBN

155365174X / 9781553651741

Call number

AHC.YEP.SAC

Library's review

Saltwater City pays tribute to those who went through the hard times, to those who swallowed their pride, to those who were powerless and humiliated, but who still carried on. They all had faith that things would be better for future generations. They have been proven correct.

Canada’s first
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Chinese arrived in British Columbia in 1858 from California. Almost all mee—merchants, peasants, and laborers — and almost all from eight rural counties in the Pearl River delta in what is now Guangdong province — they came in search of gold and better fortune, escaping the rebellions, flood and drought of their homeland.

By 1863 over 4,000 Chinese lived in B.C., filling jobs shunned by whites: miners, road builders, teamsters, laundry men, restaurateurs, domestic servants and cannery workers. Between 1881 and 1885, thousands more arrived, most imported to build the transcontinental railway. They were to create, in Vancouver, Canada’s largest and most dynamic Chinese Community, known to its original inhabitants as Saltwater City.
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Pages

208
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