It took the walls away
into nostalgia and memory
recalling the many phases
of our lives.
Parents, grandparents,
aunts and uncles
long vanished into the ether
came alive once more;
school days of teachers and games
with school yard friends and foes.
They echo all around adding
a light patina of richness
to these walls and I am grateful.
“Patina is the value that age puts on an object.”
~ John Yemma, journalist and editor
Four geese flew low
preparing for the long flight south
it is always comforting to hear
that soft ruffle of their wings
then I know that a part of nature
is blood and bone as are we ~
traversing life on the silent wings of
ancestors, family and friends.
“You are born to fly, and in dreams you remember the soul has wings.”
~ Robert Moss, Australian historian
Such a poignant and eye-opening read! The opening page is Lily, pregnant and reminiscing about her mother, rubbing her ankle just as her mother had years before. Set in Sparwood, B.C., Ah Loy, Lily’s father works in the mine and is content with his life in Canada. Swee Hua, his wife is very unhappy with Canada. Moving from China, to Brunei and finally immigrating to British Columbia, they settled in mining community of Sparwood. Their children, Lily and Bea, were born in Canada making Ah Loy very proud. He had been stateless in both China and Brunei. Swee Hua does not share his feelings, and seems to be from a different class. Their dialects are different, even within their Chinese neighbourhood: Hakka, Hokkein, Cantonese and Mandarin often indicating class. Jamie Chai Yun Liew has filled this story with issues of immigration, Chinese heritage and the many dialects, family secrets, motherhood, racism and mixed cultures, all seen through Lily’s eyes as a child, then a wife and a new mother.
Swee Hua deserted the family when Lily was 11. No note and all her things gone. When Ah Loy looked for his wife with many calls to his family in Brunei, and in the surrounding Sparwood area there was no trace.
Lily is left with the nagging question of what happened to cause her mother to leave them. She carries it with her through her life, even concerned that it was something she may have done or not done. This while her sister Bea was just angry with their mother. Lily preferred learning her husband John’s Ukrainian culture and didn’t want anything to do with anything Chinese, while her sister respected and enjoyed their Chinese cultures.
Lily especially missed her mother when her daughter was born. Her Auntie Choo Neo, Ah Loy’s sister, took on many of the responsibilities but purposely tried not to replace Swee Hua. She accompanied John and Lily, and their baby, Leonida, in an extended search for her mother, Swee Hua. The conversations that Lily and Auntie Choo Neo had on the plane both there and back struggled through the emotions of the past and whether they would find Swee Hua.
None of these details are skimmed over to include them all. The pacing of this very textured story is steady and comfortable. This story, complete with Chinese characters at the beginning of each chapter, is beautifully written.
“It was as if they were pollen that was lifted by the wind
and landed in this place when the air quieted, unplanned,
unprepared, planting themselves in soil they did not choose.”
~ Jamie Chai Yun Liew, Dandelion
Title: Dandelion
Author: Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Cover and Text Design: Jazmin Welch
Cover and Interior Art: Ophelia Liew
Edited by: Catharine Chen and Shirarose Wilensky
Copyright: 2022
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Type: Fiction
Format: Soft Cover
ISBN: 9781551528816
Canadiana (ebook): 20210390816
Searching in the dark
for edges of light,
my memory reached out
to touch the wisdom
of my ancestors
while my heart adjusted
to shadow, to edges of light
and I knew that I was safe.
“The spirits of the dead may be invoked for the good of the living.”
~ Shinto saying
Spread out before us,
sharing the prairie with grasshoppers, sunshine,
steady wind and cloud
sculptures in the sky.
Spread out before us
was our childhood ~
parents, aunts, uncles,
cousins and neighbours, storekeepers, school teachers
Nostalgia ~ a sweet soft ache.
“Family matters because I love my roots and traditions, and
I carry them with me. I respect my ancestors, and I know who I am.”
~ Belén Gallardo, memoirist, biographer
It’s in our roots
A tree barren of a life
that waved in the wind,
branches stiff and cold;
saddened when a full life ends
but the joy I feel with
new exuberant growth
brings me comfort.
“One must have roots to bloom, sprout, grow and branch out.”
~ Jeffrey G. Duarte, author
Life long values
from our ancestors
settle into our bones
foundations of clay
to be shaped or discarded
built upon or ignored
unchanged or altered
to become our ancestral legacy.
“The choices we make about the lives we live determine
the kinds of legacies we leave.”
~ Tavis Smiley, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
It hurts ~
to even think
about our history
gobbled up
as a mere commodity
when, as immigrants to
both countries, our ancestors
left the homes of their birth
to sail thousands of miles
to be sprung free to learn a new land,
to build new homes and communities
that nurtured generations of families
who are now faced with
a nightmare of nothingness
because someone sees us only
as a commodity.
“There is just so much hurt, disappointment and oppression
one can take… the line between reason and madness grows thinner.
~ Rosa Parks
Sorting through old photographs, not the kind that get digitized and scrolled through but the glossy ones. I suppose they’d be called hard copies now. But that’s too rigid a name for the memories that they hold. When I hold the photo in my hand, feel the cracks in shiny
old paper, see my grandparents
standing outside their neat home or see my Grade 6, and I’m only guessing, class with
our grins, silliness or scowls,
I am suddenly back in my hometown.
Back with those school kids, chalkboards
and school recitals. School kids that went
skating in winter and played Kick the Can
or Green Ghost in summer, the rules kicked
aside with time. Then I’m back walking the
dusty alley to main street, past the locker plant
and another block to my grandparents tidy
home with sweet peas and white alyssum
and so many flowers in the front. At the back
a well kept, and fruitful vegetable garden.
Memories that may be different from my
siblings, but I’m hoping they are as sweet.
Rather than digitize these memories, I decided
to leave them as they were in place and time.
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
~ Dorothea Lange, documentary photographer and photojournalist
(1895 - 1965)
At Christmas,
when families gather
there is laughter and longing
as stories are unwound about
ancestors
school days
children
grandchildren
future, ideas, plans, beliefs
until we go separate ways at eventide
“…the knowledge of one generation could be handed on to the next,
so that each age could profit from those that had gone before.”
~ Arthur Charles Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
