Category Archives: Media

BBC Heart and Soul: Chinese Christians in Vancouver

I am happy to announce the airing of a radio show episode in which I was honoured to participate. The show is the BBC’s Heart and Soul. The title of the episode is “Chinese Christians in Vancouver.”

It is interesting that the episode is airing in the midst of Holy Week. The show host, Matt Wells, interviewed his participants over the Chinese New Year weekend in February. I am pleased to recognize friends, acquaintances, and even some research correspondents in the show, especially Stephen Cheung, the Rev. Simon Lee, Fr. Paul Chu, and Bill Chu.

The episode presents a fairly comprehensive view of Chinese Christianity in Vancouver. It tracks the growth of Chinese evangelicalism in Vancouver, drawing from early Chinese Canadian history to the growth of wealthier Hongkonger migrants to the current influx of people from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It also compares Catholics and evangelicals, as well as generational and geopolitical divisions.

My contributions also ranged across these topics. The soundbite that Matt pulled from our fairly lengthy interview concentrated on the growth of second-generation English-speaking ministries within and without Chinese churches and their comparisons with the Southern Californian ‘silent exodus.’ I am happy to say that this serves as a preview into post-doctoral research I will be conducting next year.

It was also fascinating to see how Matt covered the other parts of my research through the other respondents’ voices. My master’s research into transnational Hongkonger evangelical churches was adequately covered by interviews with Cantonese communities and the comparisons between Protestant and Catholic voices. My PhD thesis on engagements with the public sphere, especially around sexuality issues and the provision of social services, was covered through interviews with Bill Chu, SUCCESS, and Vancouver Sun religion writer Douglas Todd. The work that I have been doing with Claire Dwyer and David Ley on the Highway to Heaven also made it into the program through the interview with Peace Evangelical Church.

As always, I need to provide a few caveats.

First, Matt always returns to China as the homeland for people in the Chinese diaspora. This needs to be more critically assessed. As Laurence Ma and Carolyn Cartier point out in their book The Chinese Diaspora, the issue of homeland is actually very complicated for people in the Chinese diaspora, as ideological claims that China is home don’t always match the material realities of multiple homelands.

Second, Matt seems to think that the church is the place where politics and social services emerge. I don’t blame him for assuming this, but the relationship between church and civil society for Chinese Christians in Vancouver is very complicated and needs to be more critically assessed. This is especially true for the sexuality issues, where it’s assumed that protests against sexual orientation discrimination bills, same-sex marriage, and anti-homophobic curricula emerge from congregations and are driven solely by a conservative theology. The reality is much more complicated, as religious values don’t always emanate from the church, but can be individually held and combined with secular factors.

Third, I worry about the near-portrayal of Chinese as homogeneously wealthy in Vancouver. While it is very true that wealthy Chinese migrants have transformed Vancouver’s urban landscape, the existence of organizations like SUCCESS that provide social services, employment help, and English-language and citizenship training indicates that there are economically disadvantaged Chinese people in Vancouver too. As a result, not all Chinese in Vancouver are of the same economic and political stripe, not even within church congregations.

However, overall, I am very pleased by the program.  I am especially happy to see that Matt has inferred with good insight the central issue here in Vancouver (though I am picky about the details): how does a multi-faceted Chinese evangelical population relate to Vancouver’s secular mainstream? To what extent is this about racialization vis-a-vis whiteness, and to what extent is it about religion? I am glad that Matt hasn’t provided definitive answers to these questions, but has framed them as starting points for further and deeper conversation and debate. In other words, Matt isn’t telling us what to think about Chinese Christians in Vancouver; he’s asking us to listen in and start a thoughtful conversation. Because of this, though I have caveats, I am happy to recommend this program as an introduction to the work that I have been doing in Vancouver. I would encourage listeners then to get in on the debate.

Vancouver Sun: Census: Mandarin, Cantonese top immigrant tongues in Metro Vancouver (Kelly Sinoski)

Jun Xiao, who immigrated to Canada from Nanjing, China in 2011, speaks Mandarin at home with his wife Dan, 19-month-old child Michael, and mother-in-law Aiping at their suite in East Vancouver.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen , Vancouver Sun
(Source: Vancouver Sun: http://www.vancouversun.com/Census+Mandarin+Cantonese+immigrant+tongues+Metro+Vancouver/7442441/story.html)

I was quoted in today’s Vancouver Sun on census data that indicates a high concentration of Cantonese and Mandarin being spoken in the Metro Vancouver area. The online version was published yesterday. You’ll find the article in today’s paper on p. A4.

Kelly Sinoski’s article is part of a series she’s doing on emerging census data.  As Henry Yu (UBC History) her, many of the sites where these languages are spoken are in Chinese churches.  Sinoski followed-up with an interview with me on Tuesday morning and then printed this yesterday.  I told her about Chinese churches as extended family sites, as I had written about in my 2011 Population, Space, and Place article on “Making a Cantonese-Christian family.”  She included arguably the funniest quote that I received during my MA research for the article:

Justin Tse, a UBC grad student who is studying the phenomenon, said the church often provides newcomers with a sense of family and connectedness. One of his research subjects, for instance, told him that he often attends church, but usually falls asleep during the sermon and wakes up when it’s over.

“It’s a lot like going to your dad’s house,” he said. “There’s a strong sort of familial feeling.”

You’ll find the exact transcript quote on p. 761 of the academic article.  Thanks, Kelly, for the quote–it was fun chatting! And thanks, Henry, for making the connection!

Radio Canada International: Highway to Heaven

ImageI was recently interviewed, along with multicultural activist Balwant Sanghera, by Lorn Curry at Radio Canada International. We spoke about No. 5 Road in Richmond, dubbed the “Highway to Heaven.”

You can hear the piece here. As you’ll hear, I implicitly sneaked in a few fun insights from scholars associated with The Immanent Frame.

I think Lorn did an excellent job putting this together, and I am very happy with the overall final product, although if I were to be just a little bit nit-picky, I found it interesting that he referred to the “rituals at the evangelical Christian churches.” But overall, it’s great. Thanks, Lorn!

Gu Xiong, Swimming the River @ Richmond Art Gallery

I am participating as moderator at the Richmond Art Gallery for a panel discussion on Gu Xiong’s Waterscapes on 28 October 2010 at 7:30 PM.  Our panel discussion is titled Swimming the River.

Gu Xiong’s artistic work focuses on the hybrid identities that come from a migrant experience.  He is himself a migrant from Sichuan who sought political refuge in Canada after the Tiananmen incident in 1989.  He makes his home base at the University of British Columbia, and his work has been internationally displayed.

Tonight’s discussion features Gu Xiong himself discussing his work, Parm Grewal from Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society speaking about her work on migrant settlement and anti-racism, and Dr. Glenn Deer from UBC English speaking about migration and hybridity in literature.  I will also speak on my own work in the transnational Hongkonger Christian church as well as the collaborative project on No. 5 Road (the ‘Highway to Heaven’) in Richmond.  The question we address is: what happens when large numbers of people migrate around the world? a question particularly relevant to Richmond, British Columbia, with its 61% visible minority population as of the 2006 Canadian census and its famed 43% Chinese population that has propelled its image as a Chinese ethnoburb.

Admission is free.  The Gallery opens at 7 PM, and the event starts at 7:30 PM.

More information can be found at: http://www.richmondartgallery.org/xiong.php.  A poster for the event is also available at: http://www.richmondartgallery.org/pdfs/RAG-waterscapes-panel-discussion-flyer.pdf.