A Cowherd in Paradise
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Brindle and Glass Publishing, Ltd
Publishing:26th Nov '26
£15.99
This title is due to be published on 26th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
“Wong's description of the enforced polarization of one nuclear family, set asunder by a Canadian law excluding ethnic Chinese immigrants—no matter if they are wife, daughter, or son—should be required reading for anyone who cares about citizenship and human rights.” —Jan Wong, author of Red China Blues
In 1979, Wong Guey Dang and Jiang Tew Thloo celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in Montreal surrounded by family—a milestone all the more impressive because for the first twenty-five years of their marriage, Canada’s exclusionary Chinese Immigration Act forced them to live an ocean apart. In this powerful, intimately written family history, May Q. Wong recounts her parents’ epic quest spanning two continents, five generations, and nearly a century to reunite their family.
In China at the turn of the century, Thloo was a young cowherd responsible for tending her family’s fortune—their water buffalo. She grew up to marry a stranger, and when her new husband, Wong Guey Dang, left for Canada to maintain his immigration status, she learned to shoot and defended her village from bandits, survived a brutal famine during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and became a valued community leader during the first blooms of communism—all while raising the children she and Dang had during his brief visits home.
In Canada in the 1920s, Dang faced arbitrary imprisonment for four months at the border and paid the exorbitant Chinese Head Tax to be let in. Once inside, he learned to survive in the wilderness while doing hard labour, protected himself from racists and ruffians with a knuckle-duster and a leather sap, and picked up Canadian culture as a domestic servant to a white family. Dang eventually prospered as an entrepreneurial restauranteur, but by then his wife and children were forced to remain in China, sometimes unreachable even by mail during violent and turbulent years.
A testament to the resilience and devotion of the human spirit, A Cowherd in Paradise is an important memorial to the challenges faced by tenacious immigrants across the country and a loving tribute to one family’s indomitable efforts to be together.
"Over generations, Chinese-Canadian history occurred simultaneously on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. In this intimate family account, May W. Wong weaves the past into the present to highlight the human dimensions of peasant life in China as well as those of immigrant life abroad. I loved how the Hoyping dialect rings out loud and clear. This personal portrait lets history arise from stories and become story itself." —Paul Yee, Governor General's Award-winning author of Saltwater City
"One family, two worlds. One ocean that separates and connects. Drawing on interviews, family mementos, letters, and public records, Wong delivers an authentic and moving portrait of two indomitable characters from disparate worlds . . . Through the lens of her mother, a hai ngao nui (cowherd), Wong gives voice to the resilient womenfolk left behind in rural China while their men struggled in the often hostile world of Gold Mountain. Spiced up with Hoyping phrases and pidgin English, her narrative revives a Pacific-Canadian soundscape that is fast disappearing." —Winnie L. Cheung, cofounder of the Pacific Canada Heritage Centre - Museum of Migration Society.
"A rare archival treasure, with each page revealing long-hidden histories and unexpected narratives. Exquisitely told, it opens an intimate window to the Chinese-Canadian experience while recovering lives nearly erased from the record . . . Deserves a place in every Canadian literature classroom." —Irene Gammel, biographer and author of Looking for Anne of Green Gables
"A five-hundred-dollar head tax and many families caught on the wrong side of Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act, a legislation that separated husbands from wives, parents from children, and dreams from having a future . . . May Q. Wong carries her family's story in every sharp and tender word, making events impossible to forget. A powerful story of love, loss, and belonging that deserves to be read again and again." —Leticia Sanchez, president of Heritage Vancouver
"A must-read for anyone interested in the history of Chinese Canadians . . . My own mother refused to talk about her twenty-year separation from my father, and Wong's book answered many of the questions that I had." —Day's Lee, author and documentary filmmaker
"A deeply researched multigenerational family history spanning from 1908 to 2007 . . . It traces an extraordinary journey shaped by poverty and centuries-old traditions . . . against the backdrop of Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act." —Pat Parungao, former president of the Pacific Canada Heritage Centre – Museum of Migration Society
"Bureaucratic archives often hide the lives they record . . . Separated for twenty-five years under Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong's parents' lives unfold through memory and archival traces as she offers an intimate account of an immigrant family's endurance, where love, dignity, and forgiveness persist across enforced separation and historical silence." —Jason Wang, author and co-editor of Writing COVID-19 Lives
"May's story puts names and faces to a period in Canadian history that should never be forgotten or repeated. In my opinion, her book is a must-read for those learning about these issues for the first time and an important re-read for readers like me." —Charlayne Thornton-Joe, graddaughter of a head tax payer
"Wong's description of the enforced polarization of one nuclear family, set asunder by a Canadian law excluding ethnic Chinese immigrants—no matter if they were wife, daughter, or son—should be required reading for anyone who cares about citizenship and human rights." —Jan Wong, journalist and author of Red China Blues
"An intercultural conversation between China and Canada, [as] played out in the everyday life of [Wong's] family . . . Within [the] emerging tradition of Chinese-Canadian literature, Wong . . . offers nothing less than a Canadian ethnic and multicultural history, in which the changing social image of Chineseness is embodied int eh existential shifting of individual and family identity." —Canadian Literature
"An honest and sustained description of the experiences of Chinese-Canadian women . . . [who], even in their absence, were one driving motivation that brought Chinese men to Canada and kept them working there despite racism and prejudice." —BC Studies
"This is not the work simply of a family archivist but of an author . . . Wong's book reminds us of the struggles of others and the need to remain vigilant about government decisions that impact us all—even here in paradise." —FOCUS
ISBN: 9781990071195
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
272 pages
2nd Revised edition