• Chow
• Der
• Lee
• Zhao

In most cases it extended to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, 1276AD or earlier. We have the information for the Der and Zhao families. It is a matter of finding time to translated them.

Chow family:

• Generations 1 – 5
• Generations 6 – 9
• Generations 10 – 13
• Generations 14 – 17
• Generations 18 – 21
• Generations 22 – 25

Der family:

• Wing Shui Xie (謝永述)

Lee family

• Lee On Jing (李安政)
• Generations 1-3 Lee Dong (李棟)
• Generations 2-6 Lee Hon (李侃)
• Generations 15-19 Lan Xiu Li (李蘭秀)
• Generations 19-23 Chang Yi Li (李長檽)
• Generations 23-26 On Wing Lee (李希蔭) Generations 23-26
• Generations 23-26 Hong Li (李希屏)
• Generations 23-26 Yic Wing Lee (李希亭)
• Generations 2-5 Lee Chun (李侚)

Zhao family

• Tze Cang Zhao (趙子聰)

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Note
1. The commonly accepted where about of Ping Wong Xie is that he went to the South Pacific. Nobody knows the actual destination. We were told but unable to confirm that he started a family there. Der She Chow said he was convinced to board a South Pacific bound ship as a stowaway. I think this is just rumour or speculation. However, he may very well had been tricked by the labour brokers and sold into “piggy” labour.

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Canada 加拿大

Chew Lun Association
1105 Clark Street
Montreal, QC, H2Z 1K3

Chau Luen Kon Sol
71 D’arcy St
Toronto, ON M5T 1J9
416-977-2541

Chau Luen Society
325 Keefer St.
Vancouver, BC V6A 1X9
604-254-8616

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Chew Lun Clansmen’s Assoc Ltd.
352 – 354 Hennessy Rd, 15th Fl
Hong Kong, China

Taiwan 臺灣

World Chew Lun Association
704 Min Tsu E Road, 4th Fl
Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
02-713-8629

United States of America 美國

Chew Lun Association of New England (紐英倫昭倫公所)
98 Tyler Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02111

Chew Lun Association
244 West 22nd Pl.
Chicago, IL 60616
312-791-1457

Chew Lun Association
1027 Doyle Pl.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-222-1666

Chew Lun Association
94 Mott Street 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10013
212 226 4092

Chew Lun Association
1056 Grant Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-982-4509

Huie Kao Yang Association
748 Jackson St.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-982-0652

Tom Family Association
817 Clay St.
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-982-1478

Tam Kwong Yu Association
20 Duncombe Aalley
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-982-1465

Tse Family Association
748 Jackson St.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-421-5292

Chew Lun Benevolent Association
416 Seventh Ave. S.
Seattle 98104
206-682-21244

Chew Lun Association
602 H Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001
202-393-4092

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The next time I met Margaret’s parents was a week before the wedding. Again, time was tight. This time it was my turn to be on the run. As it so happened, both of our families were living in other parts of the country and all were arriving at different times which resulted in the seemingly endless trips to the airport plus all the odds and ends that required time. Later in the week, her out-of-town nephews arrived and took up some of her time. We’ve had to wait another two years before we became acquainted.

She was born in An Min Lai, Kaiping County, Guangdong, China, (中國廣東開平縣安民里) April 1, 1911. She was the second daughter but fourth child of Wing Shui Xie whose hao was Yu Zuo (謝永述號堯作) and Guan Shui (關瑞) who had a total of three sons and five daughters.

We don’t have much information on her formative years except she, unlike the majority of rural children of the time, received some formal education but wasn’t able to continue as her elders followed the tradition of giving the girls minimal or no education. We learned in later years that after her marriage she tried valiantly to self-educate. But she met great resistance from her in-laws. Despite the opposition, at the end, she learnt enough and was able to correspond with her husband who worked in Canada.

In 1928 she was married to Cho Lai Chow (周麗操) who five years ago went to Canada, stayed and worked with his two uncles. This marriage was arranged through the efforts of her eldest sister, Kung Di (謝拱娣) whose husband’s village is close to the Chow’s. The following year she gave birth to a baby boy. Sadly, the baby didn’t survived. She seldom talked about this child but we know he was always on her mind because she expressed a desire to follow the Chinese tradition of him adopting a male child of her other sons (過繼) to carry on this line.

On November 8, 1929, her husband boarded the Empress of Russia and returned to Canada. Because of world events it would be over twenty years before they would see each other again.

At the conclusion of World War II, an application was made to the Canadian Parliament to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923. Taking advantage of this change in Canada’s immigration policy, her husband applied and became a Canadian citizen in 1949. Immediately he applied for his wife of twenty years to join him in Canada. From Hong Kong she boarded a CP Air flight, Empress of the Air, and landed at Vancouver on February 10, 1950 where her husband was waiting. Together they took the train to Elrose, Saskatchewan where Cho Lai Chow owned and operated the Liberty Cafe. Over the next six years they had three children, their only daughter, Margaret (周惠連), two sons, Harry (周錦達) and Kam (周錦東).

During the same period of time, they arranged to bring three nephews from China over to Canada. They are:

* Ming Chow (周錦信)
* Kam Fay Chow (周錦煇)
* Jim Der (謝丁財)

All three were in their late teens, no more than a year apart in age. All stayed and worked at the cafe until they were old enough to go out on their own. She had the satisfaction of seeing them become successful in life and eventually started families of their own. But she was hurt by the actions of a couple of them. She never really talked about it. I would think the sharpest and deepest hurt came in the early 60’s. At the time the Canadian government was investigating the Chinese immigration irregularities of “Paper Sons” which involved the selling and buying of immigration documents. And that was the one and only route available for the three nephews to come to Canada. One of them, however, turned against his aunt and uncle. As a result, the RCMP made an unexpected visit.

Margaret remembers that her family was traumatized. To this day, Margaret’s recollection of this event comes with mixed emotions. She doesn’t remember the time span but she knew her parents were very upset and worried, particularly her mother who was trying to hide her tears most of the time and feared being sent back to China. Margaret’s parents did not want to talk about these matters with her and her younger brothers. Since Margaret and her brothers were born in Canada, she says that she didn’t fully understand the seriousness of the situation until much later. She remembered a flurry of phone calls to and from some relatives and some people within the local Chinese community in Moose Jaw. She remembered that, even though she was only a child at the time, she felt helpless and confused. To this day, she has not talked about this time period with her brothers, not knowing whether they remembered or want to be reminded of those past days. Because Margaret did not comprehend the situation at that time, the RCMP’s unannounced visit to their home was a total shock and surprise. The visit came during a late afternoon or evening. Her father ushered her and her brothers out of the living room to one of bedrooms with instructions to do their homework, while telling the RCMP that the children knew nothing. Through the closed bedroom door, Margaret remembered hearing the two male officers interviewing and questioning her father, going through certain documents and photographs of family relations. The visit lasted several hours. The officers left, taking some of her father’s papers and photographs with them. From this time forward, Margaret remembered her father hiring a lawyer to sort everything out. Margaret believes that there were ongoing investigations into other Chinese families also in this similar situation. From what she could recall and from all indications, no charges would be laid against all the families once they gave the correct and factual information regarding their immigration documentation. Margaret doesn’t know whether there were fines or not. The RCMP eventually returned the documents and photographs taken from Margaret’s parents, even though her mother insisted to her father that one important photograph was not returned. When going through my father-in-law’s possessions and papers, I noticed on the back of many documents – in unfamiliar handwriting –were numbers denoting them as part of a series, the date “October 17, 1962″ and an initial which bear testimony to the happenings of that day.

However, my mother-in-law and father-in-law didn’t let this nephew’s actions against them and the resulting consequences spoiled their belief in people. Far from being discouraged, they took advantage of Canada’s more liberal immigration policies of the 70’s and sponsored her youngest brother Ping An Xie’s (謝平安) son, Tho Lim Der (謝 素林),and his wife and their two young daughters to Canada. Tho Lim Der immigrated first, who in 1980 arrived at Moose Jaw. A year later his family joined him there. In 1986 they moved to Vancouver where they now reside.

After Margaret’s family moved to Moose Jaw in 1960, my mother-in-law started another garden where she grew Chinese vegetables. Every year she would send us a box of her harvest by inter-provincial bus (Greyhound Bus Lines). The first time I saw her melons, jie gua (節瓜), my eyes were the size of golf balls. The jie guas were the size of winter melons (冬瓜) or about 10 times larger than normal. So we used them as winter melons. Great soup!

One of her desires was to move from Moose Jaw to Vancouver. During her last trip to Vancouver, we even took her to look at “open houses.” Unfortunately, her health started to deteriorate soon after her return to Moose Jaw. Knowing her wishes, the family decided it is fitting that her final resting place should be in the Vancouver area.

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We don’t have a lot of information on him but from data on hand and knowledge of Chinese customs we can make certain deductions. Firstly, it is safe to say that Xie Wingshui was born in 1883 or there about. His second daughter and fourth child, Der She Chow, was born in 1911. Males at that time were generally married between the age of 16 and 20. If we take the medium age and assume he was married at 18. There seems to be a pattern of a child every other year. Then in 1911 he would have been 28 which means he was born in 1883.

From here we can establish the approximate year of his arrival in Canada. If they were to go overseas and work another common practice for them to leave at the age of 14 or slightly older. This means Xie Wingshui arrived in Canada around 1897 and paid the prevailing $50 head tax.

From what we know, he stayed in the BC Lower Mainland area and worked in the vegetable farms. Since this was seasonal work thus he would returned to China during the off-seasons to save on the living expenses. He may not had made the trip every year but at least every other year.

During WWI he again returned to China. He stayed as long as permitted by his Canadian traveling paper. Made his way to Hong Kong to catch the steamship for the journey to Canada. However, the better ships were requested by the government for the war effort. After seeing the rust bucket masqueraded as passenger ship and recalled the soothsayer’s warning, he decided to postpone his return journey to Canada. Earlier a fortune teller had warned he would die away from home. In seeing the ship’s condition, he decided not to tempt fate.

Safety was a compelling reason for him to wait but there are cultural reasons also. To the Chinese, especially those of the older generations, the concept of “fallen leaves return to the root (落葉歸根)” is of utmost important. This is based upon the true home-grown Chinese religion, ancestor worship. In ancient time not worship one’s ancestors was cause enough for the a leader’s removal. Chinese history is littered with references of appointing a male heir to ensure the offerings were made at the appropriate times. It became the unspoken obligations to make offerings to one’s ancestors om all important occasions and to visit the grave sites at least twice a year, Spring and Autumn, for offerings and maintenance. Because of poor transportation and the associated high cost people die while traveling most likely wouldn’t be buried in the family or clan’s ancestral burial ground and have their graves tended to.

Unfortunately, during the War most ships were requisitioned by the government and commercial ships were few and far in between. Consequently Xie Wingshui missed the return deadline on his travelling Canadian paper. He started to sell seedings at Taishan City (台城) which is in another county but not far from his village. All was well until 1939 when the Japanese invasion finally reached the area. One of the Japanese tactics was to bomb local cities and towns. He was caught in one of these daytime raids and killed. Thus in a way he met fate on the road he took to avoid it.

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