The Chinese
	Masterteacher Joan Chow of La Ronge
FTLComm - Tisdale - March 22, 2001
Chinese cafe	Can you think of a Saskatchewan town or even village that does not have at least one Chinese cafe? Certainly there must be one but I really would have to think long and hard to find an example. Henry's in Bengough, The Mah's in Kipling, to Lee's store in Swift Current, in every part of Saskatchewan there are Chinese families. Families who have for three generations or more called Saskatchewan their home.
	The tradition of being in food service is interesting and related to the close knit nature of Chinese culture. Recognising long long ago that language and tradition are the basic elements to knowing who and what you are, the Chinese who came to North America retained their language, retained their links with their families back home and restaurants are a perfect set up for a small famil., The chores can be shared, the work allows the family to keep in touch with one another, use their language, and still make a living in this land where they are a distinct and visible minority.
	The Chinese of Saskatchewan arrived with the finishing of the railroad link to the West coast and have been here ever since. Many Canadian chinese families have been here in Canada substantially longer than my English grandfather. But their solid retention of language and family tradition has enabled these people to insulate themselves so that they have maintained their language and all that it means to them.
	In the mid seventies the war in Southeast Asia ground to a halt and from Vietnam massive numbers of refugees were displaced. Canada, as it has always done, stepped in and offered to accept significant numbers of people who were identified as Vietnamese. These people found their way to communities across the country, many to rural and urban Saskatchewan, where they melted into the society, for indeed they were almost entirely Chinese.
	Asside from these newcomers from Vietnam, most of Saskatchewan people of Chinese ancestory are from the area around Canton. They speak the language of Hong Kong and South China, not the Manderine of the North and the ancient country's capital city Bejing.
	What we so often forget, simply because this widely dispersed population of families living isolated from one another in small towns, is that these are really and truly Canadians, really and truly people of this province. They have committed themselves to life here, the good and the bad, and they are a basic part of our cultural fabric. Sadly, we need to be reminded of this fact because racism and cultural intollerance is a part of Saskatchewan society as much as it is anywhere else and we need to realise how important it is to include everyone and make everyone feel at home in their own country. The worst cases of racial mistreatment I have seen as a school principal has been in rural Saskatchewan where the two or three children of Chinese ancestory were the only non-europeans in the community. Let none us have to witness such things.
	By Timothy W. Shire