|
BLACK-SHEEP COMMENTARIES by September 26, 2007 IN December 2003, I self-published a memoir, “Short Pants to Striped Trousers: The Life and Times of a Judge in Skid Road Vancouver.” In May 2004 Patrick Nagle reviewed my book for the Vancouver Sun. His opening sentence and first two paragraphs w End Rehabilitation Experiment –It’s A Failure ere beyond my expectations. “Let us now praise famous men. The subtitle of …Craig’s memoir says it all. He writes about the life and times of a judge working around skid-road Vancouver. “The key is in the phrase ‘skid road,’ the proper historical name for what is now regarded as the Downtown Eastside. The selection of the title and the consistent use of the term in the self-published book’s text identifies a stickler for detail with a long and certain memory of how things used to be.” My one-off 200 pages of text about people and things past in Vancouver since the 1930s, written painstakingly at a snail’s pace, was analyzed and summed up by Nagle in two pages of refined and pointed English. His writing left me intimidated and his first sentence mystified me, as I’m sure he intended. I begged the literary-page editor to ask Nagle what he was telling his reader and the answer came back: in the biblical sense; to recall and extol those who came before us. The sentence is from Ecclesiasticus (or Ben Sira) 44: 1-15: “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” Ex-Manitoban Patrick Nagle, one-time city editor of the Vancouver Sun, died in January 2006. He was 71. In a column published shortly after Nagle’s death, the Sun’s Pete McMartin praised him as “the best (city editor) the paper ever produced” and as one of Canada’s greatest reporters and columnists; a journalist who “mentored a whole generation of young reporters who were fiercely loyal to him,” and whose “greatest love was for Canada and most of all for the Prairies.” In writing my book my instincts lead me to honour my parents and remember our ancestry; to recognize that neighbours, teachers and friends had mentored me; and most importantly it was an opportunity to pay homage to the Depression/Second world War generation. In a coming of age that so defines the character of yesterday’s Canada, a generation of young Canadian men and women voluntarily mobilized themselves, crossed oceans, and risked life and limb in the horror and madness of bloody battles to preserve democracy and individual liberty. Row upon row of inert white crosses bear witness to their ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom. In the latter stages of the War, one group of Chinese Canadian volunteers, initially denied a combat role, was offered a virtual suicide mission behind the Japanese lines to train a rising number of communist soldiers. It was a secret operation code-named Oblivion, accurately reflecting the fact that even if the mission succeeded the chance of survival was slim to none. Among their leaders, was 21-year-old Douglas Jung, who rose in rank from private to captain. Operation “Oblivion” was underway when atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and brought about an unexpected early surrender of Japan. Somehow our “oblivion” soldiers disengaged successfully. By coincidence Jung and I attended Law School together from 1951 to 1954. His quiet bearing and confidence convinced me that he had served in our armed forces but not a word of it entered any of our conversations. Nor did Jung ever speak of his aspirations for the future and what a future he carved out for himself. Let me now praise Douglas Jung: a man rankled by the blatancy of Canada’s stubborn denial of full citizenship and equality before the law to Chinese Canadians; a man who entered politics and worked to end the injustice. Jung was born in Victoria on February 25, 1924, and died January 3, 2002. During a hectic life-span of 78 years he was a soldier, a lawyer, and on June 10, 1957, he became the first Chinese Canadian elected as a Member of Parliament. Yet most of all he was a man so rooted in his ancestry and so passionate over his Canada that, late in life, he would say “I cannot forget that I have 5000 years of Chinese blood in me but that doesn’t lessen the love I have for my country.”
To emphasize that all Canadians are equal, then prime minister John Diefenbaker selected Jung to represent Canada at the United Nations. On Jung’s first attendance, he took his seat at the Canadian table, waiting for the session to begin. An official, seeing such a patrician non-Caucasian gentleman seated at the Canadian table, and assuming that Jung had mistakenly seated himself, politely pointed this out to Jung. Ever the gentleman Jung replied, firmly and proudly, “I am the Canadian delegate.” In February of this year Vancouver director/producer Wesley Lowe completed a biographical film, Douglas Jung: I Am The Canadian Delegate. It is a remarkably moving account of the life and times of the Jung family in Victoria set within British Columbia’s Chinese Canadian community. The film is an extraordinary use of selections of archival film and still photographs and it tells the story of unrelenting determination on the part of Chinese Canadians to become full citizens. Jung’s overwhelming sense of purpose and determination gives the film nuances of heroic persistence without making him a mythical hero. Director/producer Wesley Lowe’s film, I Am The Canadian Delegate, is a fitting commemoration of the life of Douglas Jung. On Sept. 7, the federal government named the building at 401 Burrard St. in Vancouver the “Douglas Jung Building” as a memorial to him for his service to his country and community. Wallace Craig -
wallace-gilby-craig@realjustice.ca |
|
|
