Wong Bak is an elderly man who knows Grandmother from their time in China he immigrated to Canada and has been living in the small town of Yale, British Columbia. On the night that the plot begins, a man named Wong Bak (sometimes known as 'Old Wong', and later, as 'Wong Suk') is coming to have dinner with the family. She worked as a servant for a wealthy and cruel family. Grandmother is in her 70s, and has lived in Canada for 35 years, but often tells stories of her past in China. She is the one to decide that Stepmother will be called Stepmother, and what her role in the family will be. Grandmother ('Poh-Poh') is Father's elderly mother, and holds a lot of authority within the family. Kiam, the eldest son, is the son of Father's first wife, who has died, and Jung is adopted. Stepmother is (in spite of her name) Jook-Liang's biological mother. Their relationship deepened, and Stepmother became his de facto second wife. When she was 20, she was sent to Canada to begin living with Father. As a small child, her entire family was killed in a violent attack, and after spending time at a Christian missionary school, Stepmother was purchased by Father's family to be groomed as his future concubine. Stepmother is significantly younger than her husband (Father) and was born in China. Stepmother is also pregnant with another child.

It begins in 1933 at this time, Jook-Liang is 5 years old, and has two older brothers, Kiam (aged 10) and Jung (aged 7). I have always loved you, Wayson.The first part of the novel is narrated by Jook-Liang ('Only Sister,' sometimes called Liang-Liang). He was every possible good thing I could have ever imagined. “I don’t say this much but my heart is broken. “In the years following, he was unfailingly kind, always telling me he had read my latest book, always asking how publishing was treating me,” Sookfong Lee wrote. She wrote that he attended her “first big reading” in 2007 and whispered to her, “You did a good job. News of Choy’s death prompted a wave of condolences from authors on social media, with novelist Jen Sookfong Lee writing that everyone should aspire to be the kind of author and mentor Choy was. He insisted that teaching was his great love. The former details his childhood in Vancouver during and after the war, while the latter chronicles his experience suffering a combined asthma-heart attack.įor decades, Choy taught English and creative writing at Humber College, and continued even after his literary success. Article contentĬhoy is also the author of two acclaimed memoirs, “Paper Shadows,” and “Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying.” This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

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