Remembering Jim Wong-Chu: Celebration of Life

Jim Wong-Chu arrived in Canada from Hong Kong at the age of four as a “paper son” with falsified documents. Three years later, he would learn that the woman he thought was his mother was in fact an aunt.

He was raised by relatives, moving frequently as a child, before arriving as a young man in Vancouver, where he worked a series of blue-collar jobs. He became a seminal figure on the Vancouver literary scene through unpaid activism at nights and on weekends. Even as he was hailed as a Moses of Asian-Canadian literature, he never escaped a disquieting sense of dislocation and fraudulence.

He spent a lifetime wrestling with a confusing sense of identity as someone who arrived illegally but had only tenuous ties to his foreign birthplace. What was his place in the world? Where was a Chinese-Canadian such as himself supposed to fit in the Canadian mosaic?

He suffered a massive stroke in March. He passed away peacefully on July 11. Jim was a loving husband, stepdad, uncle, mentor, and friend. He is survived by wife Marlene, stepdaughter Debbie, sisters Margaret, Anna, and Rose, brothers Peter, Thomas, and Francis, and mother Sui Tung Chu.

Obituary in the Globe & Mail Newspaper

If you're interested in giving a speech at the Celebration of Life, please contact info@literasian.com