I found my Grandfather's village in Taishan in Guangdong Province . My grandfather's house is still standing after 106 years. My grandfather built the four story house out of cement and it is still the largest house in the village.  Some one uses the house to store materials to make honey.   I  stood on the front balcony where my dad stood with his two brothers over a hundred years ago.  The house is derelict but has withstood the test of time.  

 I have not posted in quite some time since i have retired from teaching.  I have travelled a bit back to China.  The provinces of china are so different from one another in topography and culture.   In Fujian Province , I came upon a park  where  Lao Tzu is said to have retired to contemplate and meditate after he had written the 80 verses of  the Tao.   At the front entrance to the park is a stone sculpture of Lao Tzu that is 1200 years old and behind stone statue is the mountain valley.  On top of the mountain  is a restaurant from which you can see a panoramic view of the whole countryside.

THE HISTORICAL LEGACY OF OUR ELDERS

THE HISTORICAL LEGACY OF OUR ELDERS

I was able to complete my project on recording the digital history of over 40 seniors living in Alberta by March 20 /2018.  The age range of the participants were from 65 to 102.  I achieved my goal of preserving the historical legacy of these remarkable people for future generations. In trying to make this project intergenerational , I approached numerous other organizations looking for volunteers to participate particularly the youth.  What occurred was that many organizations I approached wanted to recruit me for their own projects.  I would say that my book was completed by the "Un-organization" that had  input from several organizations.   The historical legacy book includes biographies on  local residents of the Winston Heights Mountview Community,  Calgary's Chinatown seniors, the Filipino community, the Vietnamese community, Europeans, and Sikhs.  If one googles the  blurb.com website and type in "The Historical Legacy of our Elders",  one can preview the complete book.

NEW PROJECTS

I have not posted for ages. A year ago , I became interested in making jewellery and in particular Buddhist Malas that are used for chanting.  The malas have 108 beads. Each bead is used to visualize as one chants the individual mantra of a specific spiritual force such as Vajrasattva or Kuan Yin. I made so many malas that I went to craft fairs to recoup my costs. Here is a craft fair I attended last spring in Mckenzie that was held in the community centre hockey rink.  Last year I applied for a $25,000 dollar federal government grant to purchase a portable television and editing studio to record the digital history of immigrant seniors to record their stories as a legacy project for their children and future generations.  In March of 2017 , my funding proposal was approved  and I now have one year to record the digital history of 30 seniors who reside in Calgary. By mid June the studio should be up and running. People being interviewed are between the ages of 60 and 105.

I joined a Seniors project initiated by Calgary Family Services called the Elder Service Corps. The nine month course instructs Seniors on how to become community activists and leaders in the community.  A facilitator mentors the Seniors in role playing activities to show the members how to recruit members into forming a community project of their own choosing.

I became involved in the Elder Service Corps through our Winston Heights Community Centre last year when I joined the Winston Heights garden committee to help build the community garden. Here I am standing in front of my community garden bed in August. I found out their were therapeutic yoga classes being held at the community centre twice a week and it was at the yoga classes that I was approached to join the elder service corps project.  My project with another senior is to develop a historical digital history of the Filipino and Chinese Community in Calgary that will be multi-generational to preserve the cultural legacy of these communities with the emphasis on education of the ethnic communities and to disseminate the cultural history to the greater community to foster tolerance and understanding with respect to the Canadian mosaic.

Winston Heights Community Garden

Here is a fall picture of the Winston Heights Community Garden. The garden committee raised $170,000 and spent $160,000 dollars in building 52 four by eight community garden beds that were rented out for 50 dollars a year.  The city of Calgary installed a watering system with water spigots so water was available. The community members used their sweat equity to build all the beds. I myself rented a bed.  In my community bed 10 tomato plants produced over 450 cherry roma tomatoes.

As of August 15, 2015 here is my garden plot.  Sunflowers were seven feet tall. Other vegetables in the plot included carrots, lettuce, broccoli, beans, Chinese peas, collarabi , and tomatoes. Shortly after this photo was taken I pruned the majority of the tomato leaves from the tomato plants and just left the green tomatoes exposed. Green tomatoes photosynthesize like the green leaves. By trimming off the leaves more energy and nutrients flow into the tomatoes making them larger and since they are exposed to the sun they ripen on the vine.

My New Projects

It has been several months since I last blogged an item. I have become involved in several projects such doing a corporate video for Suncor in November of 2015 and then the oil patch crumbled so thus ended future projects.  I have become a Buddhist and a follower of the Pai Yuin True Buddha school who recognizes Sheng Len Lu as the true living Buddha.  The Buddhism that I follow is the tantric Buddhism that  follows a lineage of Padamakura. I am also on the Winston Heights community garden committee that created 52 organic gardening beds in the community centre. I am also a director on the Calgary Lees' Association and hoping to help revitalize the 100 year old benevolent association that still exists in Calgary's Chinatown. I have also been tutoring Buddhist monks in reading, writing and speaking English that will assist them in communication Buddhism in the English language. I have also joined a community group called the Elder Service corps dedicated to forming community projects to give back community service to the community. I still maintain my greenhouse that has expanded to include tropical fish, orchids, house plants and growing bedding plants for the summer. I have one of the few greenhouses that have fig trees that produce figs.

Tomato Update

I was in my greenhouse and I realized in three short months it will be time to start growing tomato seedlings to plant in May.   I am already growing some hyacinths and gladiolus in pots so I will have some flowering plants by the end of May.   Click on my Horticultural blogsite for an update  on what occurred with the tomatoes, I grew this year. Six varieties of tomatoes

 

The Nature of Lying

I have not made a posting in a couple of months.  I have been preoccupied with different projects. I have begun attending a Saturday meditation class at a Buddhist Temple. Buddhism does not conflict with Christian, Jewish or Islamic beliefs; however I find the afore mentioned religions present various misconceptions about Buddhism.  I discovered that Buddhism is not a religion but has been classified as a religion by other institutions.  Just as there are many different forms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the same is true of different schools of Buddhism.  In searching for the Truth or the meaning of one's existence, people turn to different religions or belief systems and the answer is found within oneself as you come to terms with your own personal beliefs.  In our world one is constantly being deceived, so it is difficult at times to perceive what is the Truth.  I recently reread a book by Sissela Bok entitled  "Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life"  that describes the different forms of lies that are perpetuated in our society, and institutions.  I have summarized the different forms of lying from her book in a topical outline.  If you click on the following link you will find my outline of lies:   Types Of Lies

If one wants to learn more about deception one should read Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent".   After reading this documentary one can view all governments and all major corporations with eyes wide open and do not allow oneself to become manipulated into becoming subservient worker bees.

Here is a picture of the Leshan Buddha that is near Chengdu in Sichuan Province. Notice that the people at the base of the Buddha, the people do not even come up to the Buddha's  big toe. The Leshan Buddah is now the largest statue of a Buddha in the world,.The largest Buddha in the world was in Afghanistan but the radical Pashtun Afghans, known as the Taliban blew it up with dynamite because they saw the Buddha as an affront to their Jihadist Islamic fundamentalist beliefs. Statues of Buddhas are not idols to be worshipped. Buddhists use the statues to help them visualize the powers of enlightenment when they meditate to gain inner peace.

Chinatown Calgary

A walking tour of Calgary's Chinatown in the down town core only takes an hour. Chinatown is situated on Centre street where all four quadrants of the city intersect.
Chinatown Calgary     Click on the link to view the short video.

 

The Galt Hospital 1891-1955

The first Galt Hospital was built to accommodate six patients but soon increased to fifteen. If there were too many patients, patients were housed outside in tents (only in the summertime). This building was considered modern for the time, with sewer and hot water systems. The water had to be pumped by hand into upstairs tanks.

The hospital was run by the Galt family with Dr. Mewburn as superintendent. A staff of four nurses and 3 lay people were hired to care for the sick. The top floor of the hospital was reserved to accommodate the staff. Being so conveniently located, nurses were on call 24 hours a day.
The Galt Hospital had 4 sources of income: (1) a twenty-five cent deduction per month from the employees of Alberta Railway and Coal Company and the Great Falls and Canada Railway (2) Government grant of 29 cents per free patient per day. (3) a Town of Lethbridge grant of $400 per year, and (4) pay patients--meaning those who could pay.

In 1910 and 1930 additions were made to the hospital and increased the capacity of the hospital to 65 beds. Sir Wilfred Laurier the Prime Minister of Canada came to the opening of the hospital but the coordinator of the opening ceremonies mislaid the key to the front door and  the Prime Minister was not able to open the front door to turn the key in the door to officially open the hospital.

The Galt building has continued to serve the community. The Galt has been at different times a Senior Citizen's Home, Rehabilitation Centre and Health Unit. In 1966, the Sir Alexander Galt Museum moved from the Bowman Arts Centre into the Galt Hospital and occupied the top and bottom floors. In 1979, the Galt Museum & Archives took over the entire building. In 1985, the Galt Museum underwent its first expansion.

Our Lee Family held its 100th anniversary of Lees living in Lethbridge at the Galt Museum. The Museum has a beautiful foyer with a panoramic view of the High Level Bridge, the University of Lethbridge, and the Old Man River valley.  The Lee Family had an open house luncheon and invited the general public to attend the event to meet the Lees who had returned for the reunion. In the evening there was a banquet catered from the University Of Lethbridge food services that was operated by Aramark.   The Chef who prepared the meal was Charles Parker who had the distinction for cooking for the Queen of England.   If you look at one of my previous videos in my blog , you will see the foyer of the Galt museum with the Lee relatives.

I recently visited the Galt Museum in October and went on a guided tour of the museum. You can view the tour I took as I videotaped parts of the tour in the video post below .

The Galt Museum

Der Soon Yet

My Grandmother's maiden name was Der Soon Yet who was married to Lee Duck . I flew to Kelowna this summer to meet with Tom Soon who was 95 years old and was a baby when my Grandmother was their servant girl at the age of 15.  My grandmother at the age of two months was sold to a wealthy Chinese family in Guangdong Province to pay off a debt and became an indentured servant girl to a new born girl of the same age who belonged to the wealthy family. My grandmother grew up with the new born girl for 15 years.  At age 15, the girl from the wealthy family was betrothed in an arranged marriage to a 30 year old Chinese businessman living in Vancouver who paid for the passage of his 15 year old bride and my grandmother the 15 year old servant girl to come to Canada who was Tom Soon's father.  The young bride at age 16 gave birth to  Tom's eldest brother
and it was my Grandmother's responsibility to look after the new born baby.  I remember my Grandmother telling me , that a Soon family member came to her while she was looking after the new born and said there was a gentlemen in the next room who was looking for a wife and if she wanted to she had the choice of marrying this man or she could remain their servant girl.  My grandmother took a peek and saw her future husband Lee Duck and thought he looked so handsome in his wide brimmed hat, his nice white suit and the spats on his shoes. She thought I might as well have my own babies rather than look after someone else's babies.  My grandmother's brother who was a Der tried to buy her back from the Soon's because he did not want her to marry Lee Duck but Soon had struck a business deal with my Grandfather Lee Duck to purchase my grandmother so Soon could recoup the passage fees and probably the Head tax fees for bringing over my Grandmother. So in summary my grandmother was bought and sold three times.  My grandmother gave birth to six children in Canada---three boys and three girls.  From these children came a host of cousins and I have fond memories of our family get togethers with all the cousins.  We just had a family reunion in Lethbridge to commemorate 100 years of Lee's living in Lethbridge from 1914 to 2014.  Four generations of Lee descendants came from ages  8 weeks,  1 to 2 years,  4 to 10,  12 to 18,  25 to 65 and the elders 85 to 95.  Relatives came from Beijing, Melbourne, New York, Toronto. Utah, Colorado, Vancouver, Edmonton, Red Deer, Victoria, Lethbridge, Taber, Kelowna, Kingston, Whitehorse for a three day reunion.  Below is a picture of Der Soon Yet at about age 18. She is just a gorgeous beautiful girl , no wonder my Grandfather wanted her as his bride. My grandmother was one tough resilient lady. I remember my Grandmother when I was six years old and was present at her funeral when she died and I was in my late teens.  She knew the names of all her grandchildren and great grandchildren and loved them all.

Lazy Lee's Self-Watering Tomato System Video

I created a short video with power point notes that explains how to build the six different types of tomato watering systems. I found the single pot watering system and the water bucket system as the best systems for growing tomatoes.

Self Watering Systems For Tomatoes

I have been experimenting with growing tomatoes by using different watering systems and have come up with six different watering systems. The six watering systems are as follows:
1. Chicken Feeder Watering system
2.  Toilette float watering system
3. Bucket watering system
4. Individual container pot
5. Bucket in bucket watering system
6.  Buried Soaker hose from a bucket

I began by starting my own tomato seedlings in  April and May and placed these plants into different containers outside by June 15. It is now July 30 and I have some green tomatoes the size of my fist. I have planted different varieties of tomatoes:  Tom Thumb, Cherry Roma, Manitoba, Early Girl, Giant Dotto and Beefsteak.  I even started some tomatoes from cuttings from a tomato, I wintered over from last year.

Lee Reunion July 7: Celebrating 100 years in Lethbridge 1914 -2014

On July 7, & 8, over 100 Lee relatives gathered in Lethbridge to celebrate 100 years of the Lee family in Lethbridge.   Four generations of Lee family members attended.  Lee members came from Beijing, Australia, York, Whitehorse, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Pincher Creek, Lethbridge, Edmonton,Tor onto, Utah  and Kelowna.  There are 14 different ethnic groups that have married into the Lee family.  The reunion actually began with some relatives meeting to play golf on July 6th at the Lee Creek golf course in Cardston. On Monday, the general public was invited to a reception at the Galt Museum from 12:00 to 4:00 pm to meet the Lee relatives.  Judy Chan created an unbelievable genealogy display that depicted all of our Lee descendants from 1905 to 2014.  The luncheon was catered by the University of Lethbridge catering service who also provided the evening the banquet.  After the reception some relatives visited the cemetery to pay respects to our Grandparents, Uncle Jim, Auntie Betty and Uncle Phil .  Before the banquet we gathered outside the Gault Museum for a Lee family photograph.   Each relative also released a helium balloon with their named attached.  During the banquet , their was a slide presentation commemorating Ruth Lee's 90th birthday.  On Tuesday, the Lee's met at Pavan Park for an all day picnic and in the eveining , there was a final formal banquet at one of the Mormon stake centers.  There were slide presentations on cousins and an uncle who recently passed away and some of Uncle Jim's old family videos from the 1950's. 

Fishing at Eagle Lake June 12

I have not posted for awhile, as I have been gardening, tutoring and experimenting with watering systems for growing tomatoes. On July 12, it was free fishing in Alberta without a license. Camilla, the wife of my cousin Chris Lee wanted to go fishing. I asked my good friend Doug Grey if he would take us fishing in his boat.  So we went to Eagle Lake which is a one hour drive east of Calgary. Eagle Lake has a nice campground, swimming area, boat launch , picnic area and a general store and even mini-golf.  We put the boat in the water around 10:00 am and fished until 4:00 pm . Using a fish finder to locate the fish we trolled using "Rattling rapella" fish lures.  We managed to catch 10 pike but released most back into the lake and just kept a couple to eat for supper. Doug filleted out the two fish.   I wore my Chinese straw rice paddie hat that I brought back from China much to Doug's chagrin.   The coolie hat is the ideal hat to wear on a hot summer's day because it acts like an umbrella and provides a complete shadow that covers your shoulders and so there is no sunburn or heat stroke.

Spawning Jewel Cichlids

April 18, Good Friday, and there is a snow blizzard outside when it should be a nice spring day. I go into my greenhouse and I am tending to my bedding plants, house plants and tropical fish. I notice that my two jewel cichlids are removing debris from a rock slab in the community tank. About an hour later, I look into the community tank and witness the female jewel cichlid  laying her eggs on the slab and the male cichlid would circle behind the female to fertilize the eggs. In the space of an hour their were a couple of hundred eggs laid in a concentric circle. I went and videotaped the spawning of the two cichlids.  This latch batch of eggs will be the 6th batch of fry to be hatched since January. I have to find another tank to place the female cichlid to give her a rest and prevent her from reproducing eggs. As long as the female is with the male, she will continue to be a prolific breeder but the problem is I have no room to raise the offspring.

Chinese Genealogy: Finding Your Roots

Chinese Genealogy

The New Penguin English Dictionary defines genealogy  as 1 (a) the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or from older forms. (b) an account of this. 2 The study of family pedigrees.

One of the best websites to consult in one’s introduction to Chinese genealogy is written by Al Chinn in his House of Chinn website.  (http://houseofchinn.com/index.html)

Al Chinn states the two fold purpose of his Genealogy site is as follows:

A word of explanation about this website, it contains two sections. The first section is about Chinese genealogy and should be useful to those who are looking for their Chinese roots. It contains background information explaining about Chinese genealogy, the use of special terms and terminologies, and some historical information about Chinese names, a brief description about migration overseas by your ancestors and how to initiate the search for your family history in China.

The second section pertains to the Chinn (Chen) (陳) clan and should be of interest to those who share my surname. It touches on some historical information about the origin of the clan name, the State of Chen (陳國), Yingchuan Hall (穎川堂), the Chen Dynasty (陳朝), the southward exodus from the homeland in Henan Province (河南省) and later settlements in southern Guangdong Province (廣東省). It should be remembered that the majority of the present-day descendants of the Chinese immigrants who went overseas originated from Guangdong Province (廣東省) mainly from the Pearl River Delta Region (珠江三角洲) not far from Hong Kong (香港), and also from southern Fujian Province (福建省), mainly from the Xiamen (Amoy) (夏門) area. I hope your visit will be an enjoyable one.

(Al Chinn   October 10, 2007)

Al Chinn’s website has an introductory genealogy book for sale You Are Royalty: A Guide to Your Chinese Ancestor.   In the preface, he states “It is my sincere hope that this book will be of value to budding family historians who are primarily involved in the investigation of their Chinese ancestors. It should be helpful to non-ethnic Chinese who originally had Chinese ancestry, and also to English educated ethnic Chinese who have little or no Chinese cultural heritage.

Mr. Chinn offers for sale introductory root search booklets for the following surnames: Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Zhao, Huang, Zhou, Wu, Zhu, He, Peng, Tan, Lu, Lan, Cen.

According to Chinn, family names can be derived from the following sources:

·         Decreed by a sovereign

·         Dynasty name

·         Title name

·         Honorary name

·         Family name

·         Generation name

·         Official post name

·         Skill or occupations

·         Social name

·         Clan name

·         Feoff name

·         Political name

·         Place name

·         Direction name

The Calgary Lees’ Association in Calgary who have been in existence in Calgary for over 100 years has a generational chart that traces their direct lineage to Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism.  Lao Tzu’s family name was Li and he was known as Li Er .

Li Er was the 17^th generational descendent of Li Lizhen a court official during the Spring and Autumn Period (722-481 BC).  Li Lizhen adopted the name of a plum a tree fruit called Muzi which became the Chinese Character for the surname Li.

Below is the generational chart of the Calgary Lees’ Association from Lao Tzu (500 BC)  to the various Lee clans in Guangdong province that include the counties of Toi-san, Hoi-ping, Yin-ping, Hok-san and Sun-wui. (20^th Century A.D.) There is also a photograph of current Calgary Lees' Association members who are descendants of Li Er.

 

JUICE 4 U : Juice Bar In The Dragon City Mall

Located inside the Dragon City Mall on Centre Street in the Calgary Chinatown Core is one of the best juice and beverage bars of the all the Bubble Tea Shops in Calgary.  Although the selection is limited in comparison to the other Bubble Tea Shops, the beverage bar excels in terms of using natural ingredients and the drinks are the original creations of the health conscious proprietor Yan.
The beverages include: Gourmet Coffee, Green Tea Smoothies, and Fresh Bubble Teas. Juice 4  U also offers a choice of two light snacks----rolled crepes and waffles---that are made from scratch and baked before your eyes on the crepe maker or the waffle iron.  I sampled one of Yan's latest green smoothie creations that was a combination of papaya, mango, pineapple, kale and spinach that has no artificial sweeteners. The green colored beverage has a smooth texture, a bouquet of fresh fruit and vegetable flavors that tantalizes one's palate and quenches the thirst. This is the best smoothie, I have ever experienced.  The price range for beverages are between $3.95 and $5.50.