Vancouver— Multimedia artist Paul Wong says his year-long residency at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens in Vancouver’s Chinatown is his way of “coming full circle” in his artistic and personal journey.

Wong will launch his project, called Occupying Chinatown, on Sunday, coinciding with the City of Vancouver’s formal apology for the historical discrimination against Chinese residents in Vancouver.

Much of Wong’s artwork created throughout the year will be based on 700 handwritten letters sent to his mother from more than a dozen different people, from 1946 to 2016, when she passed away. Wong said his mother was a “mail-order bride,” and met his father in 1947 when he travelled to Hong Kong from his home in Prince Rupert to pick her up.

“She fainted when she saw him because apparently he was a bit of a rascal and the photos that he had been sending her was of him as a young man, when in fact he was 30 years older than she was,” he said.

The letters are filled with mundane, yet fascinating, details that reveal the realities of living in Canada for early Toisanese immigrants in Canada, said Wong. Toisan is a region in Guangdong Province, China.

He plans to eventually have all 700 letters translated into English.

Wong moved from Prince Rupert to Vancouver with his family as a child in the early 1960s and spent much of his childhood in Chinatown.

But like many in the Chinese community, he drifted away as the neighbourhood’s vibrancy faded in recent decades. Chinatown failed to attract Hong Kong immigrants fleeing the 1997 handover, as well as more recent immigrants from Mainland China.

Wong recently decided to “refocus” on Chinatown, setting up his studio at the Sun Wah Centre (268 Keefer St.). Spending his days in Chinatown once again has been gratifying, he said.

“I get to hear Cantonese and Toisanese, smells are coming back, the foods are still here but there’s little left. So for me, its coming full circle.”

One of Wong’s most prominent art pieces for Occupying Chinatown will be a neon sign saying, 咸水埠温哥华 – pronounced Haam Siu Fow Wun Goh Wah in Cantonese – which translates to “Salt Water City Vancouver.”

“Everyone used to referred to Vancouver as Haam Siu Fow. That’s what we always called it,” said Wong.

He received permits for the sign this week and plans to install the sign on the south wall of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen garden in May. The public art piece honours a culture that has started to fade in the Chinese community, he said.

“The Toisanese and Cantonese languages are rapidly disappearing right now. So this is a way of paying homage to that.”

Vancouver city staff are preparing a UNESCO application for Chinatown, but Wong says the neighbourhood has already suffered from the city’s neglect in past years.

Chinatown should have been protected as a heritage neighbourhood, like Gastown, he said. Recent developments and businesses don’t respect the neighbourhood’s history and cultural roots, he added.

June Chow, co-founder of the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown, said Wong’s art in the community allows people to continually question who Chinatown is for.

“It’s a very timely reminder that while there is a fight for Chinatown, among different factions and certainly developers, its about who are these places for – who gets to occupy Chinatown?”

Several 20-year olds are leading the fight against development in the area – a conflict that was at its height last spring when council considered approving a 12-storey condo building slated for the corner of Keefer and Columbia, across from the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen garden

Wong is an inspiration to the younger generation, said Chow.

“He has come back to Chinatown at a time when we’re actually losing a lot of our elders and mentors,” she said.

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“It is very significant for Paul to be in the community to play that mentorship role in this generation.”

Wong will launch his project with a screening of his film, “Ordinary Shadows, Chinese Shade.” The film explores Wong’s perspective of the Chinese community in Canada and in China. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden will show the video in the Scholar’s Study inside the garden from April 22 to June 11. The video is also available online on vimeo.

Occupying Chinatown is one of six public art projects commissioned by the City of Vancouver.

Wanyee Li is a general assignment reporter based in Vancouver. Follow her on Twitter: @wanyeelii

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