UBC Asian Library, in collaboration with the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives remounts the exhibit “Where Did the Immigrants Actually Come From?” This exhibit was first shown in the Asian Library in 2010 followed by a two-year project on mapping the villages and towns recorded in the Head Tax database.

The very idiosyncratic dialects of the immigrants from a myriad of villages and towns of southern Guangdong left behind a pool of sometimes indecipherable documentation of their roots. The inadequacies of custom personnel to accurately capture and document the villages and towns of origin in verbatim form culminated in a host of Romanized forms for reported places.  As a result, research based on the place of origin has been rendered fuzzy and inaccurate. Since 2008, Asian Library has organized 20 rounds of community-based meetings with Taishanese / Zhongshanese-speaking participants to match the towns and villages of origin reported by 90% of the immigrants with the original geographical names in Chinese scripts.

The exhibit is now on until July 3rd, Tuesday to Sunday daily 11am-5pm at the Chinese Culture Centre Museum in Chinatown (555 Columbia Street, Vancouver).

Click here for the detailed description of the project and the Head Tax database.

Hanfu or Han Chinese clothing refers to the historical dress of the Han Chinese people (the biggest ethnic group in China), which was worn for millennia before the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1644.  It is a product of collective wisdom and artistry, and can best reflect the ethnicity of Han people. Some other Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Bhutan also have implemented Hanfu elements in their own clothing.

Hanfu Club (汉服学社) consists of a group of students who are enthusiastic in the Hanfu culture and wish to revive Hanfu. In collaboration with the Asian Library, they created this exhibit with the aim to introduce the various types of Hanfu with one at a time.  The display is set up in the foyer of the Asian Centre and is changed every other week until November.

Westernization has been a major process in Chinese music since the beginning of the 20th century, illustrated by the adoption of Western harmony, counterpoint and performance practices. Western elements have also influenced the design of instruments, introducing new sonorities to traditional texture.

Created by the Asian Library, this exhibit includes samples of hammer dulcimers, two-stringed fiddles, three-stringed lutes and a zither, along with scores. It’s believed that Steven Lee, who was an active member in Vancouver’s Chinese community in the 1940s and 1950s, collected these instruments.

You can visit the display, which is in the IKBLC Gallery located on 1961 East Mall [map], until December 7, 2009.

Edgar Wickberg, Professor Emeritus of the History Department at UBC, was a renowned scholar on China and Southeast Asia. He was also very much part of the history of the Asian Library, serving as a member of Asian Library’s Advisory Committee for 10 years from 1970 and offered valuable advice and guidance on collection development and services, especially on Chinese-Canadian studies even in his post-retirement years. We continued to receive his recommendations on books and journals last summer although his energy was already very much compromised by his failing health then.

Being extremely generous of his time and resources, he was very committed to assisting the library to fill the gaps in the collection by donating materials he collected at conferences and research trips. Although his key interests were Chinese Overseas in Southeast Asia and Canada, he amassed sizable bodies of valuable Chinese materials on the early Republican years and Chinese history in general.

In 2008, he made more donations to the library, which were combined with his earlier gifts to become a special legacy from this endearing scholar and teacher.

A display of his donations is set up on the upper floor of Asian Library from January 2009. To complement his materials, a few titles, relevant to the broad theme of Chinese-Canadians are also added to the display.

Related link: Edgar Wickberg memorial page