Chilliwack's Chinatowns: Social Life | Les quartiers chinois de Chilliwack : La vie sociale

Dr. Chad Reimer, author of "Chilliwack's Chinatowns" (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2011) was interviewed in December 2016 by the Chilliwack Museum and Archives. In this video, Dr. Reimer discusses social life within Chilliwack's Chinatowns.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Museum of History in the creation of our virtual exhibition, Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism, and Arson.
Transcript:
Social life of the Chinatowns was, of course, very closed, insular. You had people coming and going all the time so it’s not like it was a static community. The social life in the Chinatowns revolved around these boarding houses and stores. The Chinese often didn’t understand each other because they spoke different dialects and so forth. But, you know, at least they would be able to spend time with, with, their fellows. Fun was hard to come by, and so the, you had big events where things such as; Fan Tan games, which is a form of dominos for, you know, money, gabling. And these could be quite raucous affairs. It was treated as “ohhh gambling” by the local officials, and basically they saw it as a way; it was a way of social control. The other thing that, that was done for recreation too was smoking opium. You’d see these elderly Chinese sitting on their porches smoking, and smoking, they didn’t smoke tobacco by in large. There’s no evidence that it was on the level of addiction and so forth. They didn’t drink and so it was very much like a social, you know, like having a whiskey and so forth. Most of the Chinese would not have been literate, so reading wasn’t a big pastime. And the other thing was that, with very, very few exceptions, there were no families. By in large people who came here were, you know, men, well when they were here they were single. Many, if not most, had families in China.