Panel Talk: Road to Gold Mountain and Chinese Canada

Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library,
Department of East Asian Studies &
Chinese Language & Global Asia Studies at UTSC
Jointly present the panel:

Road to Gold Mountain and Chinese Canada

A panel talk with Ms. Ling Zhang and Professor Tony Chan

Monday, April 26, 2010 starting from 2:30pm

Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Panelists: Ms. Ling Zhang (張翎) and Professor Anthony B. Chan

Discussant: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu

Date & time: Monday, April 26, 2010 starting from 2:30pm, with a brief ceremony honoring the donations from Professor Tony Chan and Ms. Ling Zhang to the East Asian Library. Light refreshments will be provided.

Location: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library (On the 8^th floor of the Robarts Library at 130 St. George Street, Toronto)

Registration: Seats are limited and registration is required. To register, contact Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca) or by phone 416-978-1025

Flyer: downloadable

Language: All talks are in English

Biographies & Topics of the Panelists

1. Road to Gold Mountain, by Ms. Ling Zhang

Author Ling Zhang has an MA in English from the University of Calgary and lives in Toronto. She came to Canada in 1986 and started writing in the mid-1990s. Her works have won her numerous literary prizes, including the Chinese Literature Media Award as Novelist of the Year (2009) and China’s first Zhongshan (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) Cup Overseas Chinese Literary Award (2009) for her most recent book Gold Mountain Blues. Gold Mountain Blues (Jin Shan 金山), is the story of the great Chinese migration to Canada that traces the history of five generations of the Fang family from the 1860s to the present. The novel relates the struggles and sacrifices of the Chinese laborers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the evolution of the modern Chinese-Canadian identity. It incorporates stories of people who came to Canada to pursue dreams of wealth and prosperity that quickly eluded them. The English version of the novel is expected to be published in Canada in 2011.

2. Chinese Canada: An Imagined Nation, by Prof. Anthony B. Chan

Complementing the notion of an English Canada and a French Canada, what has transpired during the first decade of the 21st century is the evolution of a dynamic cultural, financial, political, and social entity called Chinese Canada. With a critical mass of more than 1.3 million people, this is an ethnic community and “imagined” nation with links to the Chinese Diaspora globally and especially, to the economic growth of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Canada as an “imagined” nation within the larger Canadian nation has all the characteristics that an English Canada or a French Canada possesses: dynamic cultural organizations, financial impact, political acumen, expanded populace, a global reach, and social stability. This talk explores how this came about.

Professor Anthony B. Chan, PhD in Chinese history from York University is noted for the following books: Arming the Chinese (1982), Gold Mountain (1982), and the biographies of Hong Kong Billionaire, Li Ka-shing (1996) and Chinese American movie icon, Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (2007). He has directed, produced, and/or anchored more than 100 films in Canada (CBC), Hong Kong (TVB) and the United States (Sun Riders Production); many are now available on the YouTube channel Comm2230U. Tony also worked for CBC television news as a street reporter. He is now a Professor of Communication at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.