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Bid to learn grandfather's
secret led her to China
Colleen Leung got her
family to talk on film about the past and the result is a 45-minute documentary
that premiered Friday
 
From the time she was 11,
Colleen Leung has been collecting scraps of her life, trying to make sense of it
all.
It started simply enough when
she clipped a story from Canadian magazine about Chinatown in Cumberland, where
her grandparents met and married in 1925. They were the first Chinese to move
out of Chinatown and into the town itself.
Leung still has the story she
clipped out as a young girl growing up in that Vancouver Island town. She still
remembers what it was like living there, being picked on because of her
differences and trying to fit in with her Toni perm.
"I almost deliberately
set out to be a professional Chinese person. My family was not there to protect
me, to stand up for me. They had no words to tell me what I should do,"
Leung says.
So she began searching for
who she was and that search led her to discover her family's secret.
Her grandfather had a whole
other family in China.
Leung learned about it in
1974, at the end of a six-week, Chinese government-sponsored trip to China for
overseas Chinese students. When all of the others were going to visit relatives,
the tour director, a Mr. Sun, asked her why she wasn't going to visit her family
in Daaihjak -- four hours north of Hong Kong by hydrofoil.
When Leung came home from
China she wanted to know why no one talked about the first family. She wanted to
know why it was kept secret. Why her grandmother had cut off all contact after
her grandfather died. Why her family had cut their own relatives off, leaving
them without outside support during the Cultural Revolution.
There was stony silence in
response to her questions. No one wanted to talk about the family Liang Gang had
left behind when he came to Canada in 1910 to make money to support them. No one
is even sure that Annie Lowe, Colleen's grandmother, knew about the first wife
and family in China before she agreed to marry him in 1925.
In fact, no one had talked
about the first family for the 46 years that Liang Gang, his wife and their
family worked so hard in Cumberland building up a grocery business so he could
send money back to China each month. And no one wanted to talk about how, after
Liang Gang died in 1960, all ties to the first family were broken. No more money
was sent. No family photographs mailed. No letters from Canada.
Last fall, Leung got her
family to talk about it on film. The result is Letter from Home, a 45-minute
documentary done for the National Film Board that premieres Friday at Tinseltown
-- opening night of the Asian Film Festivall.
The surprise to Leung is that
the film ended up being something quite different from the one she set out to
make. It was only after she interviewed all of her relatives here and in China
and was editing the film that Leung realized she wasn't just trying to tell her
grandfather's story.
"I thought the
documentary was pure and simply my grandfather's story, but it was really about
my discomfort living in my own skin because I happen to be yellow," she
says.
"I resurrected it [my
grandfather's story] for my own connection with China, for my own sense of
self-worth."
After she learned that the
first family existed, Leung immediately switched her major at the University of
British Columbia from pre-medicine to Chinese politics and Mandarin. When she
was able to speak Mandarin well enough in 1979, she went to China, to the
village where everyone is named Liang. It was the first time in 19 years that
there had been any contact between the two families.
Everyone
remembered her grandfather who had so dutifully sent money home. Some people
even recognized her. Leung was shocked to find her own baby pictures and
childhood photos hanging on her relatives' wall alongside her parents' wedding
photos and pictures of other family members.
Patching together
conversations in Mandarin and the local dialect, they told her how they barely
survived the Cultural Revolution because by then her grandfather had died and no
more money came.
"What I found was
myself," she says. "I felt enormously fulfilled in China."
She decided to move to China
in 1980 and became the first foreigner ever to work for China Central Television
in Beijing. Leung worked hard at being more Chinese than the Chinese with her
long hair braided and her frumpy clothes.
More than anything, she
wanted people to think she was Chinese, not Canadian. That was until she was
truly mistaken for a Chinese woman in 1982, arrested, forced by police to hand
over her passport and sign a confession. She wanted to be Chinese until she
sought refuge at the Canadian embassy and the staff helped find her way home.
When she came back, she still
played at being Chinese. But she didn't go to China for a long time. Leung built
a career here working for CBC, BCTV and then doing documentaries. She married
Graeme Coleman, a Juno-nominated musician who wrote the music for her film.
Now, at 46, Leung says the
film ends what she describes as her very long adolescence of finding her own
identity. It has also softened her judgment of her grandmother and the rest of
her family. She no longer thinks they deliberately cut off the family in China.
She no longer believes it matters, because through the making of the film, all
has been forgiven.
But she's still a bit
anxious. None of her family has seen the film. They'll watch it for the first
time Friday night on the big screen and Leung is sure there will be lots to talk
about after.
- by Daphne Bramham &nnbsp; Vancouver
Sun
2 Novmber 2001
VANCOUVER
FILM FESTIVAL NOTEBOOK
LETTERS FROM HOME
4 Star Rating: ****
When Colleen Leung was a little girl growing
up in Cumberland, she was so tired of being picked on because she was Chinese
that she'd sit in the bathtub and try to rub off the colour of her skin with
Ajax. Later, she'd sport a Toni perm. Whatever it took to fit in.
Now, at 46, the Vancouver-based film maker
and award-winning broadcast journalist shudders at the memory and is one of the
country's proudest Chinese-Canadians.
Her metamorphosis began back in 1974 when she
discovered a shocking family secret. Her grandfather, Liang Gang, a
Chinese immigrant who raised a large family in Cumberland, where he built a
grocery business, was also husband and father to a second family in China.
And he had supported his overseas family until the day he died.
Leung's amazing journey since that fateful
discovery is the subject of Letters From Home, a fascinating, bittersweet
documentary that recounts her complex heritage and how she found her true
identity by probing the reasons behind this startling secret.
"It shaped me," said Leung, who is
in town to appear at the Victoria Film Festival's screening of the film.
"It recorded my journey from being unhappy being Chinese to being obsessed
with being Chinese. It was a catharsis but a very gradual one."
The National Film Board documentary, which
Leung directed, chronicles her journey through a conventional but effective mix
of photos, home movie excerpts, interviews with relatives and footage of her
return to China for the first time in almost two decades. It also sheds
insight on the politics, economics and societal factors surrounding the mystery.
As illustrated in the film, Leung didn't
learn about her family's long-held secret until the end of a
government-sponsored trip to China for Chinese students. When the other
students went off to visit relatives, she was stunned when a tour guide asked
why she wasn't going to visit her family in Daaihjak, a village four hours
north of Hong Kong.
The natural curiosity that would later fuel
the UBC graduate's broadcast career with China Central Television in Beijing,
CTV news and as a reporter with CBC Radio News and Current Affairs prompted
Leung to aggressively seek the truth when she got home.
She was stonewalled by her relatives,
however. And she grew angry when she learned that, when her grandfather
died in 1960, her grandmother, Annie Lowe, appears to have cut off all ties and
financial support to the overseas family when they needed it most, during the
Cultural Revolution.
Leung would later switch her major at UBC to
Chinese politics and Mandarin and, when she was speaking fluently by 1979, she
returned to the first family's village. The film documents her alternately
hostile and welcoming reception by relative there three years later, and her
shock at seeing baby and childhood pictures of herself in the village homes.
She was shocked to discover that, as her
father candidly confirms, her parents quit school to help their grandfather so
he could support his other family in tough times.
Whether Leung's realtives here deliberately
cut off her grandfather's first family, or whether the grandmother Liang Gang
met and married in Cumberland in 1925 knew about her husband's past when they
tied the knot, remain a mystery. But Leung said making the film was
therapeutic, taught her about forgiveness and brought a sense of relief.
"It took 25 years to build up to
it" said Leung with a laugh. "They didn't tell me until the
cameras started rolling. It was never mentioned. It took that long
to wear them down."
Leung says when she started making Letters
from Home it was ostensibly going to be a film about her grandfather, which
may have encouraged her relatives to agree to talk.
"My goal was to get my relatives to fess
up," she said, laughing. "And then I realized that I was the
protagonist. But they were very gracious about it. And it did
resolve things."
Leung, who attended Cumberland elementary and
was later in the same graduating class as Kim Cattrall at George P. Vanier
secondary school in Courtenay, says she's looking forward to having her film
screened so close to home. She's also curious to see how it will be
received when it's shown in March at a festival in Courtenay, where two of her
uncles live. She's not sure if her parents, who still live in Cumberland,
will be there.
"That will be the highlight for
me." says Leung. "To find out what the neighbours think."
- By Michael D. Reid
Times Colonist 2 February
2002
VICTORIA
FILM FESTIVAL
Film
reveals a Family Secret
When Colleen Leung was a little girl growing
up in Cumberland, she was so tired of being picked on because she was Chinese
that she'd sit in the bathtub and try to rub off the colour of her skin with
Ajax. Later, she'd sport a Toni perm. Whatever it took to fit in.
Now, at 46, the Vancouver-based filmmaker and
award-winning broadcast journalist shudders at the memory and is one of the
country's proudest Chinese-Canadians.
Her metamorphosis began back in 1974, when
she discovered a shocking family secret. Her grandfather Liang Gang, a Chinese
immigrant who raised a large family in Cumberland, where he built a grocery
business, was also husband and father to a second family in China. And he had
supported his overseas family until the day he died.
Leung's amazing journey since that fateful
discovery is the subject of Letters From Home, a fascinating, bittersweet
documentary that recounts her complex heritage and how she found her true
identity by probing the reasons behind this startling secret.
"It shaped me," said Leung, who is
in town to appear at tonight's only festival screening of the film at Hermann's
Jazz Club. "It recorded my journey from being unhappy being Chinese to
being obsessed with being Chinese. It was a catharsis, but a very gradual
one."
The National Film Board documentary, which
Leung directed, chronicles her journey through a conventional but effective mix
of photos, home movie excerpts, interviews with relatives and footage of her
return to China for the first time in almost two decades. It also sheds insight
on the politics, economics and societal factors surrounding the mystery.
As illustrated in the film, Leung didn't
learn about her family's long-held secret until the end of a
government-sponsored trip to China for Chinese students. When the other students
went off to visit relatives, she was stunned when a tour guide asked why she
wasn't going to visit her family in Daaihjak, a village four hours north of Hong
Kong.
The natural curiosity that would later fuel
the UBC graduate's broadcast career with China Central Television in Beijing,
CTV news and as a reporter with CBC Radio News and Current Affairs prompted
Leung to aggressively seek the truth when she got home.
She was stonewalled by her relatives,
however. And she grew angry when she learned that, when her grandfather died in
1960, her grandmother, Annie Lowe, appears to have cut off all ties and
financial support to the overseas family when they needed it most, during the
Cultural Revolution.
Leung would later switch her major at UBC to
Chinese politics and Mandarin and, when she was speaking fluently by 1979, she
returned to the first family's village. The film documents her alternately
hostile and welcoming reception by relatives there years later, and her shock at
seeing baby and childhood pictures of herself in their village homes.
She was also shocked to discover that, as her
father candidly confirms, her parents quit school to help her grandfather so he
could support his other family in tough times.
"They were digging potatoes at midnight,
with rats scurrying around," she notes solemnly. "They quit school to
help feed a family they had never met."
Whether Leung's relatives here deliberately
cut off her grandfather's first family, or whether the grandmother Liang Gang
met and married in Cumberland in 1925 knew about her husband's past when they
tied the knot, remain a mystery. But Leung said making the film was therapeutic,
taught her about forgiveness and brought a sense of relief.
"It took 25 years to build up to
it," said Leung with a laugh. "They didn't tell me until the camera
started rolling. It was never mentioned. It took that long to wear them
down."
Leung says when she started making Letters
From Home, it was ostensibly going to be a film about her grandfather, which may
have encouraged her relatives to agree to talk.
"My goal was to get my relatives to fess
up," she said, laughing. "And then I realized I was the protagonist.
But they were very gracious about it. And it did resolve things."
Leung, who attended Cumberland elementary and
was later in the same graduating class as Kim Cattrall at George P. Vanier
secondary school in Courtenay, says she's looking forward to having her film
screened so close to home. She's also curious to see how it will be received
when it's shown in March at a festival in Courtenay, where two of her uncles
live. She's not sure if her parents, who still live in Cumberland, will be
there.
"That will be the highlight for
me," says Leung. "To find out what the neighbours think."
- by Michael
D. Reid Victoria
Times
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