Interview with Doreen McCutcheon

Penny Lett interviews Doreen Brodie McCutcheon (seen right in the 1962 photograph), and discusses Chinatowns in Chilliwack, farm worker Jim Lee, opium use, gifts and generosity, Christmas time,  foods,  potato farming,  children, and funerals.

Transcript:

Lett
That’s just incredible, absolutely incredible. Now I’d like to talk a little bit about Chinatown and Jim Lee. Now Jim Lee was a Chinaman who worked on your farm, is that correct?

McCutcheon
Yes, he was employed; he was with us for 25 years. He would, um, walk from Chinatown every morning and come to work, and then he would go back at night, and he would have his noon meal with us.

Lett
Would this be Chinatown on Yale?

McCutcheon
Uh, on Yale West, down by the Frosted Foods.

Lett
Was he born in China?

McCutcheon
Yes. He had a wife back there too.

Lett
And he would be one of the, what they called bachelors living here?

McCutcheon
Yes, they came out to this country to work I guess hoping they’d bring their wives later, but he never did bring his. But, uh, quite a; their houses were very close together, like row-houses. Mostly on the one side, the left-hand side going up to Sardis. The Masonic hall was also a very, uh, prominent place, and our Masons from Chilliwack were invited out there for banquets.

Lett
So this would be the Mason hall, a special occasion place and so on. What were the row-houses like? They were literally attached to each other?

McCutcheon
Yeah, as far as I remember they were attached, or very very close, but I think they were attached.

Lett
And tall?

McCutcheon
No, they weren’t large, they weren’t very big and they had a porch running right across the front of them.

Lett
So a sidewalk kind of thing?

McCutcheon
Yeah a sidewalk.

Lett
And you told me that in summertime as you went by you’d see them sitting out smoking their opium?

McCutcheon
That’s was, uh, Jim Lee told us that they, uh, were smoking opium. And the old fellow would be sitting out on a warm summer evening on the front porch and, uh, they’d have this very long stemmed pipe and what they were doing, they were smoking opium.

Lett
Where would they get the opium from?

McCutcheon
China I guess, I don’t know.

Lett
In through Vancouver?

McCutcheon
Probably, I couldn’t say. They had a source, maybe (unintelligible).

Lett
Now, Chinese people are very fond of children, and um, I’m told they would bring presents to the children of the farmers for whom worked?

McCutcheon
Oh yes, The Chinese are very, very generous and, uh, every Christmas we looked forward to the Chinese lilies, a dish to put them in. We also put stones around the base and just water. Stones and water, just the stones to hold the bulb and the roots; grow very tall; very heavy scented bloom. And, uh, lychee nuts, which are lovely. They have a soft shell and very meaty around a pit. And, uh, fireworks, and uh, I can’t get the word. The shoots, vegetable shoots, would you call them shoots, or?

Lett
Oh, probably.

McCutcheon
Yes, very tender. Sprouts! That’s what I’m trying to say. Very tender sprouts, he’d bring those too. Because they eat a lot of that sort of food.

Lett
And the Chinese here were, uh, into growing potatoes? That would be their..?

McCutcheon
Yes, it was, they’d rent land, a field from a farmer and they would, uh, plant their own potatoes and sell them.

Lett
Were there Chinese children at school with you?

McCutcheon
Yes, I’d say there’d be 7 or 8 over at Robertson School. The, uh, children all got along fine. Yes, (unintelligible) lot of the Chinese.

Lett
Tell me about Chinese funerals and the dragon dance.

McCutcheon
Oh yes, when there’s a funeral down at, uh, Chinatown they always had to bring out the dragon. And apparently the tail portion of the dragon was very, very important. And one time the, um, Jim was showing my dad how that tail should have been worked, because the one who was doing wasn’t doing it correctly. And he was showing my father how it should have been done.

Lett
So this would be a special step?

McCutcheon
Oh yes, very.

Lett
Very ritualistic and very important that it be done just so. So the dragon dance would involve a number of people in the-?

McCutcheon
I believe so because it’s quite large this dragon costume. I understand they do this in Chinatown in Vancouver, don’t they?

Lett
And tell me, uh, the funerals they used to throw a kind of confetti with holes all through it?

McCutcheon
Yes, I think the devil is supposed to go through all these holes in the confetti before he can; before he could get the spirit, he’d probably never make it. And that would save the person.