Wah-Lun Wong

Born in Toishan, Guangdong province of southern China, our father (Ba) grew up in a peasant farming village where he and his brother were raised by their grandmother. To survive, the siblings depended on the remittances from their mother, who was in Canada, and thanks to the discriminatory immigration laws, mother and sons did not reunite until more than 30 years later.

After being married with two children, Ba emigrated to Vancouver in 1981 with literally just the clothes on his back and the hope of forging a new life for his family. He initially worked as a dishwasher in Chinatown, but was promoted to assistant cook and eventually full-time cook at a Cantonese restaurant. Our parents’ greatest dream was to own a house and become a Canadian citizen. The vicissitudes of emigrant life forced them to toil from dawn to dusk, and Ba took on menial jobs such as working in a farm, laundromat, poultry factory, recycling plant, and construction company, sometimes working two jobs to make ends meet. They bought their first house during Expo ’86 and became Canadian citizens in 1989.

Trained as a carpenter in China, Ba had utilized his skills to renovate that house, single-handedly adding a sundeck and a basement suite intended to serve as a mortgage helper. We had been sleeping on metal cots for several years, but to our delight, after we moved into our new house, Ba had constructed real beds for us out of two-by-fours.

A man of few words, Ba was the traditional father who did not liberally express his affections, but he would show his love in other ways: asking whether we had eaten or not; inquiring where the grandchildren were when he had not seen them for a while; asking whether the family business in Calgary was doing well or not. He instilled in us the importance of family, perseverance, education, and good work ethics.

In 2011, Ba found solace in Buddhism. He became a member of The Canada Bodhi Dharma Society, enrolling in many of its meditation and chanting classes as well as volunteering for the organization. His bookshelves were jam-packed with Buddhist books and he enjoyed watching Buddhist-related videos on his iPad.

Ba was instinctively aware of his good fortune throughout his life. He was fortunate to have survived the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, despite witnessing the deaths of many peers; he was fortunate to have immigrated to Canada, the top-ranked country in the world for quality of life; he was fortune to have been the recipient of a kidney transplant since 2003, despite having been on dialysis for eight years prior; he was fortunate to have survived a stroke a year and a half ago as well as conquering many health conditions such as hypertension, anemia, and diabetes.

Rest in peace, Ba; we hope you find comfort and tranquility wherever you are. You will be missed forever.