Being Asian Canadian

Asian Heritage Month

Richard Cheung
May 18, 2022

“Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these!” Chanted by seven-year olds with accompanying gestures. It was 1973.

A white man with his shirt unbuttoned and a swastika tattooed on his neck walking through Chinatown. It was 1985.

A white man walks up to an Asian man with long hair (mistaken for a woman) and violently punches him in the face while waiting in a line up outside an Asian restaurant. It is 2020.

Racism is always present. We all have our opinions, biassed views, and judgements of others based solely on their appearance. It is our nature as human beings. The ugly truth is that racism will only end when the human race ends.

Early years as an immigrant

My dad immigrated to Canada in the mid 1960s. There, in Victoria, he worked for a couple years before he could save up enough money to bring his family over from Hong Kong. The early years were extremely difficult as my dad worked long hours in the restaurant sector earning a meager salary, which meant the family moved frequently to avoid rent increases.

By second grade I fell behind as my parents only spoke to me in Cantonese, and English didn’t come easy. Then one day in geography class a teacher asked me a question and I answered ‘Ros Angerous’, which was the correct response, however, when everyone, even the teacher, burst out in laughter… I was humiliated. You see, most Asians who have English as their second language find it easier to say ‘ra’ than ‘la’. Back then I stood out as only one of a handful of students of colour. In the coming weeks and months the heckling continued and being a skinny kid, wearing glasses, ill-fitting non-stylish clothes, and sporting a bowl cut, it wasn’t hard to pick me out of a crowd. Some kids called me chink, other kids called me Bruce (in reference to martial artist Bruce Lee) while practicing kung-fu moves on me hoping to start a fight, and some kids told me to go back to China while pulling their eyes back to create a slant. Experiencing racism was awful. There was a group of kids that were particularly troublesome. These kids would try to take my food at lunch and sometimes they would see me leaving school and chase me home in hopes that they could steal my superman lunch kit. My parents went to see the principal and he blew it off saying he needed proof to do anything. Upset with the treatment, I wanted to transfer to another school, which meant a bus ride and an extra cost my parents couldn’t afford.

For the balance of the year I spoke little, and by the end of the year the teacher considered holding me back, as she thought that with my “learning disability” I would struggle in the next grade. Fortunately my parents convinced her not to hold me back.

A couple of weeks into third grade, my new teacher witnessed the bullying and heard the racist remarks. She reprimanded the offenders and devoted a class to teaching cultural differences and being kind to everyone, even if they looked or spoke differently. This teacher said that the words may be hurtful, however, it was coming from kids that were immature, and that they aren’t a reflection of me as a person. She went further and paired me up with a few of the “cool kids”, and they helped me with my conversational English to make sure it was grammatically correct. Her actions helped me see the goodness in the world.

Even in the early years my parents put tremendous pressure on their kids to study and work hard to achieve future success. My parents owned a grocery store in Esquimalt (a rough neighbourhood), which was open for 70 hours a week and I was expected to work after school until 10pm each day and one of the days on the weekends. Even trying to make an honest living was hard, as the store was frequently spray painted with racist graffiti, windows smashed after hours so thieves could steal cigarettes, and there were three armed robberies over 20 years. Was this the land of opportunity my parents envisioned? They soldiered on after every incident, as there were loyal customers that would help paint over the graffiti or fix the windows.

Esquimalt high school had very few coloured students, maybe 10 out of 400+. My high school years were generally without incident as people seldomly picked on those who played high school sports. If they did, one of my teammates would quickly put an end to that. I tried to blend in with others on the sports teams and that included: drinking (not milk), smoking (not cigarettes), and skipping school (frequently).

When I moved to Vancouver to attend university, the experience was very different. The commerce program I was enrolled in had a large Asian student base, and I didn’t encounter any racism.

Racism amid Covid

Fast forward to 2020, with COVID raging and the world in shutdown, Asian hate reared its ugly head. There were many news reports of Asians in many parts of the US and around the world being beaten up, stabbed, pushed onto train tracks, yelled racial slurs at, spat on, robbed—simply just for being Asian. There was a 300% increase in Asian hate crimes in Vancouver—graffiti and demeaning words appeared on the walls of the Chinese cultural centre and doors and windows smashed multiple times. Asian seniors were scared to leave their homes for fear of being attacked.

How narrow minded and just plain idiotic is it to blame an entire race for something that happened, and not intentionally? Have our thoughts and actions not evolved since 1945?

In May 2020, while my family was waiting outside the hairstylist, my wife witnessed a white man walk by a restaurant and punch someone who was waiting outside the restaurant for their takeout order. Much to the aggressors surprise, the person with long hair was an Asian male who gave chase, picked up the restaurant's sandwich board and hurled it at him. Seeing that this was a size mis-match (Asian man was just a shade over five feet and maybe 130 pounds), I ran across the street to help. After a two block chase, we cornered the man and held him until the police arrived to arrest him. The assault left the Asian man with a swollen and bruised cheek, and he was grateful that people stepped in to chase down the attacker. I didn’t want to be a bystander and had to help.

Our country and company

Having experienced racism early in my life, I know how difficult it is for immigrants especially when English isn’t their native tongue. My grandma always said, “Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There will be moments of adversity in your life and that will highlight one's true character.” Ironically, that treatment early on likely shaped me as a person and how I choose to treat others regardless of race, gender or capabilities.

Canada has a multicultural population, and that makes this country so wonderful. After all, unless you are Indigenous, we are all immigrants. How boring would the world be if we all looked the same, dressed the same, and sounded the same? We need to celebrate our differences every day. Be proud of our own heritage and appreciate other cultures. I’m proud to work for a company that does a tremendous job of welcoming people from all over the world and building a sense of community.

We should all remember and practice what we learned in kindergarten. Be respectful, considerate, kind, and treat others how you would want to be treated.

As a Chinese Canadian, I want to celebrate my culture and share my story during Asian Heritage Month. The world is more beautiful if we take the time to appreciate all its colours.

As my six-year old niece once said, “I love to colour with all 48 crayons… even the white one.”

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