Lives of the Family Read Online Free PDF

conversation—“Holy. H-O-L-Y. Smoke. S-M-O-K-E.” Marion made a pledge to herself; never would she stop learning. My father has ended my education; I have not, she told herself.
    ON SATURDAY EVENINGS when W.K. Oriental Gardens got especially busy or a private party had taken it over, Harry would ring home to tell Marion to come help out Jessie Kwong at the hat check. Besides taking coats, hats and umbrellas, the hat check girls had to sell cigarettes. Marion relished those nights. The well-heeled clientele kept up a patter with Jessie; everybody knew her brother, Larry, famous for being the first Chinese to play in the National Hockey League. (He would play but one shift. In 1948, the New York Rangers put him on the ice late in the third period against the Montreal Canadiens.) Few knew that Larry had been the only player with the Trail Smoke Eaters (from which he’d been scouted by the Rangers’ farm team) who had not been supported by a job “up the hill”; the town’s Cominco Smelter had a “No Orientals” policy. Larry had had to settle for a job as a hotel bellhop.
    Among Marion’s friends, Jeanne Yip, three years older than her, was to her the model of sophistication. Being of the same height and build, Marion liked to imagine her friend’s clothes as her own. By day, Jeanne wore smart dresses and suits, with a hat and gloves and shoes to match. By evening, she dressed for her social life. Jeanne had once fantasized that she’d move to San Francisco and be a dress designer in the Chinatown there. Instead, she worked as a secretary to Quon Wong (the province’s first Chinese notary), who ranan agency in Chinatown offering interpretation and advisory services, and which was especially in demand for issues related to immigration. Jeanne, the eldest of ten, was perfectly bilingual, for which she credited her parents. They’d insisted that their children not mix English words with their spoken Chinese, a policy that eroded, however, further down in the sibling order.
    If ever a Chinese group organized a dance, you could count on seeing Jeanne Yip on the dance floor. (Chinese army and navy vets and YMCA and YWCA members often rented night spots like the Commodore downtown or the Alma Academy out by the University of British Columbia.) Because Jeanne didn’t like to wear the same party dress twice, her routine after work often involved stopping at a fabric shop to buy yardage, usually remnants she could experiment with and combine with what she had on hand. She’d look at her file of ideas, sketch a design, lay out the fabric and start sewing. By morning, she’d have a dress ready to be worn that evening.
    House parties were the extent of Marion’s social life: boys and girls gathered at someone’s house, put out bottles of soda pop and potato chips and popcorn, and turned up the hi-fi. The real excitement came before the party, when the girls fussed over what to wear.
    One day, Marion attended the wedding of a relative of Jeanne’s and gasped at the gown her friend wore: coral-coloured, strapless, with three tiers of tulle cascading to the floor. Marion swooned: “I
love
it!”
    “Then you can have it.”
    At seventeen years old, Marion had yet to go on a first date. For months thereafter, she hoped fervently that someboy would ask her out somewhere where she could show off her new gown. Incredibly, it happened.
    A Chinese boy asked if she’d like to accompany his two friends and their dates to The Cave, a supper and night club. Mere mention of The Cave on Howe Street, near the landmark Hotel Vancouver, evoked urban sophistication. On nights when the club hosted big-name acts, the latest Oldsmobiles pulled up in front to discharge socialites escorted by men in tuxedos.
    If she hadn’t had Jeanne’s dress, Marion would have told the boy she couldn’t go. The only good dresses she owned were her richly embroidered
cheong sams
. She couldn’t wear one of those to The Cave. It would be obvious: the