Tuesday Treasures

 Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

Travel Tuesday
Our World Tuesday
Image-in-ing
My Corner of the World
Timeless Thursdays is hosted by Stevenson Que

Lane names are my new obsession as I wander the city.

Laneways, also known as alleys, are narrow streets that add to the diversity of the overall public space network, supporting the fine grain character of a city. ... Laneways can work as a network for pedestrians to navigate the city and build an overall identity for the city center.

The lane is in Chinatown. Click here to see the amazing murals right down this lane. 

Click here to read and see some videos about her.

Jean Lumb (née Toy Jin Wong) (b.1919, d. 2002) was a Chinese-Canadian woman whose activism and dedication to her community ultimately shaped Toronto’s Chinatown and the rights of Chinese people in Canada. Her story shows us the importance of community advocacy, and how food can play a role in building meaningful cross-cultural connections among Torontonians.

Much of Jean’s youth took place in fruit markets, as she worked in her father’s Vancouver store. At age 12, Jean stopped going to formal school (which at the time, was segregated for Chinese students) to work full time and allow her older brother, Robert, to attend high school. This sacrifice did not go unappreciated. Robert used this opportunity to continue his education and become an aeronautical engineer, later training pilots during WWII and on the Toronto Islands.

Years later, Jean left Vancouver to help in her older sister’s fruit market in Toronto. Jean sat on a wooden train bench for 4 days and 3 nights. Her food for the journey consisted of a loaf of bread, a ham, and $1 to buy a drink. Little did Jean know, it is in Toronto that she would become a prominent Chinese businesswoman and organizer. At 17 years old, soon after arriving in Toronto in 1935, Jean opened up her own fruit market at Bathurst St. and St. Claire Ave. Jean was later introduced to her husband, Doyle, who ran the store with her until opening their restaurant, Kwong Chow Chop Suey House, in 1959 on Elizabeth St.

My photos from a 2019 exhibit at the Toronto Reference Library.

Kwong Chow was a second floor Cantonese eatery that hosted Chinese and non-Chinese customers alike, including Prime Ministers, politicians, and movie stars. Kwong Chow was one of the first restaurants in Toronto to serve dim sum. Jean shared Chinese cooking widely. She would appear and do cooking demonstrations on TV, on the radio, at department stores, and in institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum. For Jean, food was not only a means of sustenance, but a method of expressing culture and sharing it with others.

It is at Kwong Chow that Jean hosted Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, Mayor Nathan Phillips, and Chinese organizers to discuss issues facing Chinese people in Toronto. When Diefenbaker was struggling with his chopsticks, she lended a hand. This was not Jean’s first encounter with Prime Minister Diefenbaker, as she spent a large portion of her life involved in politics, fighting discriminatory policies against Chinese people and culture.

Jean’s father, mother, and husband all had to pay $50, $100, and $500 respectively when immigrating to Canada. This fee was the 1886 Chinese Head Tax, which was created to discourage Chinese people from coming to Canada. 

This was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1923, which stopped all Chinese immigration to Canada for 23 years.



This discriminatory immigration act ended in 1947; however, policies rooted in racism remained that kept Chinese families separated. Only Canadian citizens could bring family members in China to Canada, and they had to be parents older than 65 or children under 18 years old. This stopped wives from reuniting with their husbands, causing Chinatown to be predominantly a bachelor community. Jean and others would not stand for the separation of Chinese families.

In 1957, over 20 Chinese Canadians from across the country travelled to Ottawa to speak to Prime Minister Diefenbaker about changing these immigration laws. Among them was Jean, the only woman delegate in attendance. Foon Sien was the group’s spokesperson and sat on one side of the Prime Minister, Jean was asked to sit on the other. Throughout the presentation, Diefenbaker would ask Jean what Foon Sien was saying, and Jean would repeat and clarify.


“The questions from the floor were mostly directed to me because of the fact that I was a woman and the issue was family reunion…. I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to be out front as an official spokesperson. Women have always had to be too much in the background.”
Jean Lumb

Jean has a long list of accomplishments, many of which were firsts for a Chinese-Canadian, a woman, and a restauranteur. Throughout her life she did extensive work in the Chinese community, including establishing the Chinese Community Dancers of Ontario. She was also the first Chinese-Canadian woman on the Board of Women’s College Hospital. Jean was the first Chinese-Canadian woman and the first restauranteur to be appointed to the Order of Canada (1976). A year later, Jean received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal and the Governor General’s Award.

OTHER LANES TO EXPLORE

Old Post Office Lane

Al Green Davisville

Memory Lane East end

Bistro Lane Yonge and Wellesley

Galipo Brothers Lane College St.

Luttrell Loop Lane, Paul Estrala, Angelone Danforth

Frank Kovac Lane Harbord

Biscuit, Reverend Porter, Chechalk Downtown Yonge

Alan Powell and Art Eggleton Lanes  Harbord

Boys of Major, Peperonata, Jewish Folk Choir Lanes Harbord

Ice Cream Lane Danforth Ave.

Ching, Ditty, Leader Lanes Downtown

Friday Finds

1. Starts with C
2. Week's Favorite
3. Unique Perspective

The first two will be the same, except we’ll work our way through the alphabet. The second can be a favorite image or activity from the week. The third will be different each time.

Friday Finds 

ABC Wednesday

July 2016 - Toronto ON

Letter C

Chechalk Lane was only given this name in August 2014, taking its name from one of the two chiefs of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation who signed the 1805 Toronto Purchase. Toronto's Aboriginal population is larger than any other city in Ontario.

A few photos from the Indigenous Festival at Fort York a couple of years ago featuring the Mississaugas First Nation.

Week's Favourite - the first mural we found in Rochester NY this week. Martin Luther King. I even didn't really mind that the umbrella was there.

Unique Perspective

I think I have to go with this building in Rochester NY.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

July 2014 - Toronto ON

Has various translations - I like "Difficulties be Damned".

"From Sea to Sea" - Canadian motto

Image source for photo below.

Weekend Cooking

Beth hosts Weekend Cooking where you can post anything food related.

July 2014 - Toronto ON

Today I attended the first Taste of Toronto at Fort York. I had posted about visiting Fort York a few weeks ago.

Taste of Toronto web site.

We've attended Taste of Buffalo in the past and love it, the streets ate closed off and local restaurants serve up their specialties.  Tasting plates range in cost from $2 and up. It is easy to buy one sampler and then share so you can try as many things as possible.

Taste of Toronto was very elegant, Fort York is a perfect place to host it. The food was delicious. BUT the price??? I really vacillated about going when I saw the ticket prices. Entrance was $30 but really $39 with taxes. You were given a card preloaded with $6 to spend. You could then go to a Crown bank and load more money as required. Great idea!!!
Each plate ranged in price from $6-$10, plus admission not a cheap day out!!!!

I enjoyed it and everything I tried but I think the entrance fee is way over the top!

I had picked out the food I wanted to try before I got there using their web site.

Barque Smokehouse Stand R4Smoked duck tacos with pickled radish, carrots, crispy fried chicken skin and a hoisin BBQ sauce on a flour tortilla. 6 crowns

The Harbord Room and THR & Co Stand R9 Griddled Crab & Prawn Roll, Spicy Pickled Cucumber, Avocado, Crispy Bacon and Old Bay Chips 10 crowns

Mark Mc Ewan!! Famous Toronto chef and head judge on Top Chef Canada.

The McEwan Group
Stand R11 

One’s Fried Chicken with a Buttermilk Biscuit, Housemade Slaw and Chipotle BBQ Sauce
8 crowns

The Bellwoods - really enjoyed them.

Friday Pop-Up – Yours Truly
Stand R3 

Salt cod inari: Salt fish, sushi rice, horseradish
6 crowns 

Fresh made queso seasonal accompaniments:(Hewitts cream fresh cheese, early summer garnishes, orange blossom vinaigrette
8 crowns
GF Charred octopus: Sous vide, charred BC octopus, chorizo, green mango
10 crowns

Our World Tuesday

Our World Tuesday

Yesterday I posted photos from our visit to Fort York. We were there to attend the Indigenous Arts Festival which is a celebration of traditional and contemporary music, dance, theatre, storytelling, visual arts, crafts, and food created by indigenous artists. Hosted by the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.

This was a little disappointing as there were very few crafts and food displays, only one food booth and a couple of craft booths.

However the Mississaugas musicians and dancers did a good job even though it was held in a cramped tent. Considering the beautiful weather and the wide open spaces available at the Fort it would have been visually more exciting held outdoors. 

The Mississaugas are part of the Ojibwa Nation, in the Algonquian language family. They established themselves on the north shore of Lake Ontario between 1700 and 1720. During the American Revolution, the British Crown began purchasing large tracts of land for the incoming Loyalists. The first land purchase involving the British Crown and the Mississauga Nation was in 1781. By 1800, all that remained of the Mississauga’s territory was the “Mississauga Tract” which covered the land, from Etobicoke Creek to Burlington Bay.

In 1805, the British began negotiations for that last tract of Mississauga land. On August 2, 1805, the Mississauga and the British Crown signed Treaty 13-A, commonly referred to as the First Purchase. The British acquired a strip of land, from the Etobicoke Creek west, to Burlington Bay north six miles to modern day Eglinton Avenue. This became the Township of Toronto (now the City of Mississauga).

The Mississauga kept one mile on either side of the Credit River, the land on either side of the Twelve and Sixteen Mile Creeks, and the interior of the “Mississauga Tract” north of Eglinton Avenue. The fact that they retained the interior of the “Tract” enabled them to preserve their traditional means of subsistence.