The Cantonese Pacific, Part III: The Next Generation

This is the third in a three-part series of stories exploring historian Henry Yu’s theory of the Cantonese Pacific. The series is an excerpt from The Dragons That Crossed the Sea, an upcoming Zolima Culture Guide publication.

Historic Chinatown communities are being transformed by new immigration, the rise of suburban Chinese enclaves and a gradual decline in the traditions that early Cantonese immigrants took with them overseas. But the “Cantonese Pacific imaginary,” as historian Henry Yu likes to call it, is still alive.

When Amy Wang moved to Toronto from Calgary, where her family settled after leaving mainland China in the late 1990s, she was drawn to the kung fu clubs of the city’s oldest Chinatown. “My parents are kind of from all over, but culturally my dad’s family is extremely northern, rooted in Beijing and Tianjin,” she says. And while her mother traces her ancestry to Guangdong and Taiwan, “I’m more northern and a more modern Chinese immigrant than the community that has been established in Canada. For me, it was about being interested in martial arts and doing an activity that would benefit my health while also accessing my Chinese identity.”

Wang spent six years training at a traditional club with Taishanese roots. “There’s a lot of history at the club,” she says. But its sifu had passed away a decade earlier and leadership was now split between several of his disciples, each of whom had slightly different interpretations of the old master’s style, even if they thought they were on the same page. “Much like an oral history tradition there is a physical history tradition that changes with the doing of it,” says Wang. “Our methods are constantly evolving, but we may actively deny that is happening when our goal is preservation and tradition. But change is inevitable – and it’s a beautiful thing. What I see instead of a singular history is a network of stories.”

Chinatown Community Lion Dance is Wang’s attempt to create a kung fu group that marries tradition and inclusivity. “We’re rooted in the tradition of Choy Li Fut and Fu Jow Pai,” she says, referring to two schools of martial arts — coi3 lei5 fat6 (蔡李佛), named after a Buddhist monk, and fu2 zauu2 paai3 (虎爪派), “tiger claw system” —  that both have roots in the Pearl River Delta but which have been taught at clubs in North America for well over a century. 

Wang acquired the group’s green yin yang-style lion from the sifu of a club in Saskatchewan. “He said that the yin yang style is kind of a modern evolution,” she explains. “People are looking for flashier and more creative colourings, which is why we see pinks, purples [and so on]. It also felt very significant as a friend of mine a few years back had done her art thesis on lion head building and her experience as a Chinese woman, and had designed and built her own lion to reflect these ideas, which was a green and white split design in almost the exact same way. They’re siblings – her lion is named bok choy and mine is yu choi.”

The group uses the lion for dances that mix the Fu San and Hok San styles, the former being the most common style and the latter more theatrical and physically dynamic. “There’s a play between the two styles. They have a long history of influencing each other,” says Wong.

Between 60 and 70 people take part in the group, which is free to join and supported by a local community organisation. Traditional clubs require full commitment and strict adherence to the sifu’s teachings, but Wang wanted her group to be accessible to anyone interested, however casual their interest might be. Many participants are people who wouldn’t feel comfortable in the conservative, patriarchal and highly regimented environment of a traditional club – something Wang herself struggled with during her first years in martial arts.

“I’d say the highest concentration [is] of younger adults, mostly East Asian queer, femme and trans folks, but it’s really special as we have a lot of older members as well, in their 50s to 70s, and some families with younger kids. It’s a fairly diverse group across race and age demographics, all sharing social space and learning together.”

Wang’s group collaborates with a traditional club, whose sifu Ian Chow helps teach, and they perform at public events like a winter solstice festival in Kensington Market, an eclectic neighbourhood adjacent to Toronto’s Chinatown. She sees her efforts as a way to both affirm and expand the heritage of the martial arts clubs that first brought lion and dragon dance to North America. “Becoming a well-rounded practitioner and performer is about understanding where you come from,” she says. “But what I’m interested in is allowing a community to grow and thrive. If you ask, ‘Are we growing and evolving or are we losing our traditions?’ It’s both at the same time.” 

Karen Cho, who met Wang while working on Big Fight in Little Chinatown, says the Community Lion Dance is “going back to what Chinatown was — a place for people who didn’t fit into other places — but it’s also reflective of a more diverse, inclusive future.”

It’s the future of the Cantonese Pacific, which continues to exist and evolve in ways that reflect all of the layers and intricacies that have always defined the Chinese diaspora.

All photos in this story were taken by Maylynn Quan.