Ivy

Content note: This story includes reflections on childhood neglect, child labour, and forced marriage. 

In my family, I'm the youngest one. I have an elder sister, I have a mother, and I have a father. We were four people living in a house in Hong Kong. Sometimes, my mother and father would fight. They would close the bathroom door and argue. I was just a kid and I would be crying a lot. My father heard my cries and then would stop fighting with my mom. I had no idea what they were fighting about. I grew up like that.

Later on, my father found out that I started to know a lot of things. So, he sent me to kindergarten when I was about seven years old. At the time, not many people my age got the opportunity to go to school. I was lucky. I would walk to school myself. My mom never took me to school, never picked me up. I would go myself, and I would come back myself. In grade one, I went to Catholic school. I had high marks for everything but the Bible class. I did not complete it, and the school wanted me to stay at the same level until I got a good mark in Bible class. I went to this school until grade three, where after one semester, I left, and I never went to a school again.

When I was a kid, I found that my mom would always ignore me. She would play mahjong every single day, but she took care of my elder sister very well, treating her with more food. The only food I would get in a day was when my father would bring me to dim sum every morning. Then, he gave me 30 cents for lunch. When I got home, there was no water to drink, no food, no nothing.

One day I was walking back home. My mom was sitting with a neighbour, a woman. And then they both looked at me with eagle eyes. When I walked close to them, I heard the woman say, “Look at her face. Her face is an exact copy of her father.” And then my mom said, "No, maybe not." You know what I mean? That means I'm not her own daughter. A few days later, my father got a day off and was sitting at home. I asked my father, “Is this mom my real mom?” Then my father looked at me, and he said, “Your mom was a very beautiful woman.” And then I said, "Well, look at her. She's not beautiful. Is she my real mom?” My father kept quiet. I asked him again, “Father, tell me, tell me, is she my real mom?” He kept quiet again. Then suddenly, he stood up and walked away. I went to chase him, but he was already out of the house. He went so fast and far away that I couldn't find him.

My mom only let me go to school until grade three, then I went to a factory and started working. She took my money every time for gambling. I was working in the same factory as my elder sister, but in a different department. It was there that I found out people had education and spoke a little bit of English. They went to night school and learned. I was so envious of them, and I thought I should get more education, so I secretly signed up for night school without anybody knowing. When we got paid, everybody got cash. I would give the envelope to my mom unopened. She would check it: the date, how many hours, and how much I earned. Then she took all the money. She would only give me twelve dollars a month for food. How would I pay for night school then? I worked in a radio factory, so they could give us the spare parts to sell. I would make about $40 every month from that, so I had enough to pay for the $25 night school fee. I used the extra money to pay for clothes and shoes. When I was younger, I had learned some English on my own, so when I went to night school, I picked it up very quickly. I learned a lot.

A few months later, my elder sister found out I was making extra money from the factory, so she threatened to tell my mother unless I gave her half. But that would mean I could not pay for my school fees, so I said, “No, I cannot give it to you.” She told my mother something different, that I had a nighttime job as a prostitute. My mom beat me awfully that night. My father was so sad. I couldn’t tell them I was going to school, because if I did, my mom would ask where the money came from. So that was my family.

When I was 17, my father was working in the government offices. He went to high tea a lot and eventually found my godfather. My godfather wanted to find a girlfriend for a guy who came to Hong Kong from China. He was supposed to meet my elder sister. Unfortunately, my mom brought me along. When he saw me, he liked me very much. He tried to pursue me. I was 17. I was still working and in school. I didn’t think about him that way. He chased me, and my mom forced me to stay with him. Every time I went on a date with him, I was so sneaky, and I would always slip into the crowds walking on the streets when he wasn’t paying attention.

I married him when I was 18, and a few months after that, my eldest son was born. I tried to go back to work, but I couldn’t because I had to take care of the baby. Then I got pregnant again with my second son, and then I really couldn’t go anywhere, so I kept studying English at home. I finished high school level English at home. Once my two sons were old enough, I brought them to kindergarten, and then immediately went back to work. I was already planning to save as much money as I could. My husband couldn’t make enough to support the whole family, and he had to send money to his younger brother still living in China. When I worked, I had to bring him all the money I earned. I was mad because I had no money and I couldn’t buy better clothes for me and my sons. Then I gave birth to my third son. My husband still wasn’t making good money, but now I was working, so we had a little more. But we were still renting only one bedroom. Five people living in one bedroom.

My father passed away when my second son was born. He left something for me, but my mom took all the stuff away. When my father went to the hospital, my mom didn’t allow me to see him before he passed away. And when he had a funeral service, my mom still didn’t let me go. I never got to see my father even after he passed away.

Life was slowly getting better after that. We bought a storefront and started a new business together making window blinds. We got big orders in China, hotels in Shanghai, Beijing, and Harbin. He wanted to hold on to the money we made, but I wanted to invest in properties. So I took the money and invested in a lot of properties and shops under my name. I bought my own property too.

I wanted to wait for my second son to graduate high school before applying to move to Vancouver because I found out my husband was cheating on me. He had a mistress in China and was sending her a lot of money. I thought the affair would be over once we moved to Canada, but it never was.

When we first arrived in Canada, we had to fill out all the forms for the government to give us proper ID: care cards, social insurance numbers, and everything. There was an agent who helped us fill out the forms. I looked at mine, and asked him, “Why are you filling out the form for me? Where is my last name, Chan?” He told me, “You married your husband. You don’t need your last name.” But I could not dump my father’s name like that. I told the agent, “No, you have to put my last name on the application form for everything.” I didn’t want his name on my ID. He was cheating on me, and cheating me out of my money too.

Even before we moved, he had already bought a townhouse on Knight and 61st. That’s the first place we lived. He bought it for 150,000 dollars. At the time, the housing market was low. That was in 1988. He didn’t tell me. It wasn’t a smart move because the house didn’t have much value. It was on Knight and should have cost only about 120,000.

After we moved to Vancouver, we needed to find a place to restart our business. A new storefront. My sons were counting on me to support them and move them into a bigger house. Two bedrooms in the house on Knight were not enough for five people. We found a shop on Main between 7th and 8th. It was huge, almost 4,000 square feet. At first we had only one shop, but next door was moving out, so we rented that too.

We had very good business because we made all the window blinds ourselves. We had machines, but half of it was by hand, and half was by machine. Before we started, blinds were not popular. People used curtains. We brought the aluminium blinds here. We made specific one-inch wide blinds. Our machines could automatically cut to size and chop the holes for the string and the one thing we had to do by hand was put on the plastic bottom.

I eventually divorced my husband and stopped doing business with him. After that, I started working as a chef for a retirement home. I did that for a long time. As for how I ended up at this current assisted living community, I have a best friend I’ve known since the 1980s, maybe even the 1970s, back in Hong Kong. She moved to Vancouver a long time ago, but she went back and visited often. When I was preparing to live on my own, she brought me here. I came to her suite and it looked so good. She lived on the first floor in the end unit. She asked me to apply for her place here when I was younger. I said it was still too early and they didn’t take me. Later, I waited until I was 55. Then they called me because my friend was moving out. I asked if I could move to the second floor instead, since I was still working and needed a quieter place to sleep, and they said okay.

I have a strong personality. I didn’t get to where I am without it. Work hard, and don’t be afraid to push for what you want.