April

I am a Canadian of Chinese descent, and I was born in Vancouver. My mother and father were also born in Vancouver, but didn’t become fully Canadian citizens until after the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1947, despite being born here. I remember when I was a kid, going to Chinese school after school, but I never learned Chinese for some reason. Then, I got married to this guy from China, and we sent our kids to Chinese school, and they know even less Chinese. They don’t know a word.

I had eight brothers and sisters, and I was the oldest. Then, I had five children. Surviving in Vancouver is just a plain challenge and you don’t realize it. I don’t know why or how, but you just go forward and you just do what you can do. Our family, I guess you could say, was a poor family. I didn’t feel it as much, but I know my brothers and sisters did. They talk all the time about walking very far to school and having nothing to eat, but everyone has ended up successful, so that is really good. Out of my brothers and sisters only one of us went to university, but all the children my siblings and I had went to university.

I’ve always worked hard, minimum wage, but I always seem to have been lucky. I was always at the right place at the right time, and for a person that had no education, it was pretty good that I always got a job and was able to survive. I had many jobs over the years including at an amusement park and at a hotel as a cleaner and then maid. I went to take some adult classes at a university for free and did some courses in radio broadcasting, then I ended up in the retail industry.

I never had hobbies because my hobbies were taking care of children. When I retired, when I was in my mid 70s, I saw an ad from an art store about a class where anyone could learn to draw. I said to my daughter, “Hey, that’s for me.” I literally could not draw. Today, you give kids paper and crayons. When I grew up, nobody ever gave me paper and crayons. I tried the class and I liked it. And of course, you liked whatever that artist was teaching, so you would go and buy the items like the paint and the paper. So that’s how I started drawing. It took me a couple of years, but now I draw all the time. I do urban sketching, and I never, ever thought that I could draw. The artist taught how to do a circle, draw a square, and draw a straight line. Then you can draw whatever. People will always say, “Oh, no, I have no talent.” Art is a subject that you learn. People don’t know that. You learn to break things down into parts. If you can’t draw the whole city, draw the view. One time I tried to draw a car, and I did not know how to do that, so I just drew the tire. 

I came to this independent living community two and a half years ago. I guess it was just the time of my life when my son said, “We should think about where you’re going to go.” Somebody who knew somebody said they knew somebody here and said it was a nice place, so we put in an application and I met a social worker who explained to me the different ways housing can go and where you can apply. There were these senior places that you had to put actual applications in, or you could go to BC Housing where they will call you when you’re next on the list. I guess I can say I got lucky. I wasn’t desperately looking for a place at the time, but I thought the waiting list would be two or three years. I thought, “That’ll be fine. I will be ready by then.” You’re never ready, but I said that. My immediate reaction when seeing my room was, “Oh, my goodness. How am I going to live in a closet?” Of course, I eventually accepted it, because sometimes in life, things just open up and it’s your chance to say yes or no. Of course, it was very traumatic, trying to get rid of your stuff, but once I moved in, it ended up working out really well. I really like it now. It’s good. When you get rid of a lot of stuff, you have less to worry about.

I wish I could tell myself when I was younger that everybody doesn’t know what is ahead of them. You can plan, you can wish, you can learn, but nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow. When you get to this age, you look back and you say, “What was that all about?”. So, I always like to say, don’t sweat the small stuff. No matter if things go right or wrong, it’s your life, so it’s all good.