Arcola, Saskatchewan
Appochellylaisin.
Remember this phrase, I will get back to it.
This photo from my father’s collection caught my eye today. It was taken at a studio in Arcola, Saskatchewan in the early 20th century. The image shows well-dressed scholars and their teacher, posing for a class photograph. The photo is unremarkable but for one aspect; the person in the middle of the back row is unlike the others.
The photo reminds me of a reverse billiard game, with twelve cue balls in play.
I have difficulty keeping up with ever-changing rules of Political Correctness. I am sure that the use of Chinese/Pidgin English or referring to someone in the context of an “8-ball” is outside the current boundaries, but I am trying to make an historical point here. No offence is intended.
I couldn’t decide whether the 13th person in the picture was male or female.
Also, black and white photography makes it difficult to determine skin pigmentation. I wasn’t sure if the person is Black, Asian or Aboriginal. The clothing the person is wearing is different than the rest; not jacket, vest and a tie, and the hairstyle also threw me off.
As I often do when I am confused about such things, I consulted people smarter than I am. Bear, my sister Val, and her daughter Erin all thought that the 13th person is an Asian male.
I now tend to agree.
There were many “Native” people living around Arcola at the time, but it is unlikely that they would have gone to school with the “White” kids. There weren’t any Black people in southern Saskatchewan in the 1910s, but there were Asians.
When the Trans-Canada railroad and its tributary networks were completed in the late 1800s, thousands of Chinese workers were laid-off and forced to find alternate employment, at a time when there wasn’t much work to be had. With limited skills outside of railroad construction, and with language fluency issues, Chinese immigrants gravitated to self-employment, in restaurants, laundry services, and hotel service. Chinese restaurants sprang up in every town in Canada.
The Buffalo Café in Wainwright, Alberta, 1937
The ethnicity of a restaurant’s owner — not the cuisine served — led to the label “Chinese Restaurant”.
Arcola’s Chinese Restaurant was Wong Dong’s Café.
Happy Wong, the proprietor of Wong Dong’s wasn’t fluent in English, but he could get his point across. Happy’s sentences had no pauses between words, no “L’s”, and no decibel limitation.
A troop of us would sometimes (as in every day) wander down to Wong Dong’s at noon hour. Happy had a very low opinion of cash-strapped, loud and obnoxious youth cluttering up his restaurant. With paying customers waiting in line to be served, Happy would yell…..
“Yokidsatoonoysey! Takeiousie!
(You kids are too noisy! Take it Outside!)
We seldom ordered anything, but we would sometimes ask Happy what kinds of pie he had, just to hear his rendition of “Apple-Cherry-Raisin”.
Appochellylaisin. Youwansom? Whyyowasemytiiiiime!
(Apple, Cherry, Raisin…. You want some? Why you waste my tiiiiime!)
For decades, “Chinese” restaurants served hamburgers, soft drinks, pie and a wide assortment of deep-fried delicacies. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that they introduced anything resembling Asian cuisine. “Chinese and Western” signs began popping up in every town and city across Canada.
Sign on the New Golden National Family Restaurant in High River, Alberta
Chinese Restaurants still served hamburgers and sandwiches for their less adventurous clientele, but “Asian” dishes gained popularity.
Lacking ingredients for traditional Cantonese or Peking-style food, Happy Wong and his counterparts across Canada invented “Chinese” food using local ingredients. Chop Suey, Sweet-and-Sour Chicken Balls, and Ginger Beef are all made-in-Canada inventions, with a Chinese label.
There is no ginger in Ginger Beef.
It was invented in Calgary, not Peking.
I don’t know what became of the Asian kid in the old photo. He and his parents faced fierce discrimination in their adopted country but, as with many who encountered such adversity, 8-ball’s descendants are now the backbone of this country.
Calgary’s Chinatown, 1930s.
Chop Suey and Coca-Cola
All this talk about food has made me hungry. I think we will dine out this evening, at the Turner Family Inn. I will probably have the Chinese Sweet-and-Sour Chicken Balls for a main course, and maybe some pie for dessert.
It might be difficult to decide …
… Appo, Chelly or Laisin?
Russ and Bear, later this evening at Diamond Valley’s Chinese Restaurant.
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