TORONTO — For 10 years Cheuk Kwan, has been showered with praise by fellow Chinese Canadians for his regular appearances on community radio shows, where he is known for speaking out against Chinese oppression.
But last March, after the government cracked down on an uprising in Tibet, Mr. Kwan began to notice a profound shift in the attitude of his listeners. They still lit up his phone lines with fervour, though now it was to inform him that his attacks on the Chinese system had become tantamount to slighting the Chinese people themselves.
Suddenly, Mr. Kwan, who arrived in Toronto in 1976 and soon after helped found the influential Chinese Canadian National Council, was tarred as a traitor, a dissident and a rabble rouser. He was accused of "not being Chinese enough."
"They say don't touch my motherland. Don't you want to see China strong?" he says. "They see criticism of the regime as criticism of the people."
Portrait of Scott Shi in front of a statue of Confucius at the Chinese Culture Centre in Scarborough, Ont. Mr. Shi is a mainland Chinese immigrant who came to Canada in 1997. He feels offended by western coverage and feels he should defend the Chinese people. Confucius was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese way of life. (Charla Jones/The Globe and Mail)
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It is a stunning turnaround for Chinese Canadians, who have not traditionally taken a vocal nationalistic position, especially compared with other ethnic communities in Canada.
The Chinese-Canadian diaspora, a vast and diverse population now 1.2 million strong, trickled into this country across several generations and has never been known for its strong attachment to China. It was a nation marked by poverty, chaos, civil war, occupation and communism — hardly the conditions to spark affinity.
But now, as China moves closer to regaining status as a global power, its overseas community has begun fostering a new emotional bond with its homeland. The Olympic Games, in particular, have given Chinese Canadians a focal point, one that has many simultaneously spilling over with pride at China's success and frustration with the West's lingering focus on perceived Chinese failings.
"The Olympics by itself is an embodiment of a sort of Chinese coming-out party," said Mr. Kwan, who said excitement has been mounting throughout the diaspora since China was awarded the Games in 2001.
"The Chinese are looking at the Olympic Games as the kind of washing off of all humiliation and bad things that China used to represent," he said. "Chinese Canadians still hold dear the fact that they are Chinese. When China becomes a super nation, they feel proud. They feel that their status in society is tied directly to how China is being thought of on the world stage."
Mr. Kwan, who admits to a new-found sense of pride himself, said he worries the sentiments being expressed will be mistaken for "ugly Chinese nationalism" instead of shows of dignity and cultural pride.
The community's response to the negative portrayals has been to counter them with an unprecedented show of pro-China demonstrations which have unfolded across the country in ethnic media, online chat forums and most notably, with a protest in Ottawa in April, during which thousands of flag-bearing Chinese Canadians marched on Parliament Hill to rally support for their homeland. Companion protests were held across the country in other major cities, including Montreal and Toronto. Some who attended the Saturday protest in Ottawa — which received little coverage in English language media, including this paper — put numbers of attendees at close to 10,000.
"These are rare occasions the Chinese communities come together to identify," said Wenran Jiang„©, the acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. "They're rarely expressing anything. It takes quite extreme situations ˇK for so many of diverse Chinese backgrounds to say together coverage was bad, it was wrong," he said. "In major crises, we come together."
That sense of crisis is born out of the notion that Westerners have already made up their minds about China.
"It started as frustration and dissatisfaction about perceived bias in the reporting [on Tibet]," said Yuen Pau Woo, co-CEO of the Vancouver-based Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. "Many people felt that the reporting was overly negative, sensationalistic and distorted. This translates into the feeling that there is a prejudice against China and Chinese in general," he said.
The root of those feelings are widely attributed to a long-standing sense of inferiority that has permeated older generations of ethnic Chinese, which is compounded by the institutional prejudice the community faced in Canada. When the first main wave of Chinese immigrants arrived here in the late 19th century, they were fourth-class citizens relegated to building railways in B.C. Later, they were subject to a federal "head tax" levied to discourage family reunification and stall more immigration. For years, Chinese people were denied full citizenship and prevented from working certain jobs.
After the Second World War, ethnic Chinese immigration picked up in waves, drawing a broader range of middle-class families from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and, more recently, from mainland China.
For those who have been in Canada for some time, China's hosting of the Olympics is representative of the country's long-awaited emergence from the crippled era that drove them from the country. On the day the opening ceremonies were held, thousands of ethnic Chinese in B.C. and in Toronto flocked to movie theatres airing the display for a celebration.
"In the community, there is that sense of finally, we can show the world what we can do," said Liberal Senator Vivienne Poy, who immigrated from Hong Kong in 1969 to Montreal to study at McGill University. Back then, Hong Kong was "a nothing place," Ms. Poy remembered. "Nobody here knew where Hong Kong was."
David Fung, a Vancouver-based businessman and chair of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, left Hong Kong around the same time as Ms. Poy. He said the pride among his class of immigrants should be seen as a celebration of the culture's transition away from the image of "the sick man of the East."
"As a first-generation immigrant, it is really about trying to remove the inferiority complex that has been etched into our souls," he said. "Teachers, especially in primary school and high school, imposed on every student that ˇK the Chinese have a potential they've never been able to realize. The Chinese are incapable," he said.
"The fact that China did not stumble, did not make a mess [of the Olympics] is gratification," he said. "That achievement has been given very little merit. The Canadian population has developed this Chinese phobia that China is a dictatorship that can do nothing right."
It's that perception that drove Alex Lao, an information-technology consultant for the Ontario Government who moved to Toronto from Beijing six years ago, to join April's Parliament Hill protest. Mr. Lao said he's never felt particularly politically inclined, but a sense of patriotism has grown in him since he moved to Canada and was stunned by what he perceived as an immense "lack of understanding" about his home country.
"China has been making efforts to open itself to the whole world. We've come to a time where the rest of the world should improve their understanding about China, it's political situation, it's culture, it's history," he said.
In April, Mr. Lao found a host of like-minded Chinese Canadians as he trawled chat boards, and decided to link up with them for the sojourn on Parliament Hill. The point of the protest was not to show support for the Chinese government, Mr. Lao said, but to suggest the Olympics should be a time for the world to examine what China has accomplished, not an occasion to criticize what it has yet to do.
Scott Shi, a Beijing native who moved to Scarborough, Ont., in 1997 and ran a failed bid for a municipal council seat in 2006, said he's disappointed he has to rank Canada's understanding of China at a "very low level," a fact he bases heavily on media portrayals of China.
"Every time I go back I see a different China. Chinese people are living better than before. They have better income. They enjoy life better than 10 years ago," he said. "I'd like to tell my Canadian fellows that this is a country with many people and they're trying to do their best. Every nation deserves success," he said.
