Susan Crean’s memoir Finding Mr. Wong chronicles her effort to piece together the life of the man she knew as Mr. Wong, cook and housekeeper to her Irish Canadian family for two generations. Reminiscing, Crean writes, “I grew up in Mr. Wong’s kitchen …”

A Chinese Head Tax payer hired by Crean’s grandfather in 1928, Wong Dong Wong remained on the job following Gordon Crean’s death in 1947. Mr. Wong eventually retired in 1965 and moved to Chinatown. Crean’s homage weaves the various strands of her memories of and discoveries about Mr. Wong during the last 25 years of his life; she travels the streets and histories of Chinatowns in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, and twice she visits Guangdong, China, where she located his home village, found descendants of his father’s brother, and learned the beginning of his story: orphaned as a newborn, then brought to Canada by his uncle, Wong YeeWoen.

At the core of the narrative are Crean’s observations of the blurred lines between numerous socio-cultural dynamics (worker/employer, family/servant, child/adult). She particularly considers relationships that cross race as well as class. Beginning with the partnership formed by Crean’s grandfather and Mr. Wong – a partnership whose long alliance and evident mutual regard guaranteed Wong’s presence in Crean’s own story – she relates her own experience grappling with racism as a small child in the Vancouver of the 1950s and 1960s. Crean’s exploration also considers memory and its role in the writing and researching of a book such as this. She meditates on the ways socio-cultural issues are represented (or not) in film and literature, ultimately combining fiction with historical recreations and memoir.

Finding Mr. Wong is an important contribution to a growing body of writings that illuminate the lives of people silenced or otherwise negated by myopic history.

Susan Crean was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, and is of Scots-Irish descent. She began travelling in the sixties, studying at universities in France and Italy. In 1989 she moved to British Columbia where she spent a decade researching, writing and teaching. Her articles and essays have appeared in magazines and newspapers across Canada, and she is the author of seven books. The first, Who’s Afraid of Canadian Culture, appeared in 1976. Her landmark work, The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr, was nominated for five awards including the Governor General’s Literary award and won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 2002. Crean currently lives in Toronto.

Susan Crean's profile page

"[Crean] has shone a light on a little-known part of the story of the Chinese in Canada, and she has done so with love."
—Judy Fong Bates, Literary Review of Canada

"[An] elegantly written and fiercely felt account of a love that crossed the boundaries of race and class."
—The Vancouver Sun

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"[Crean] has shone a light on a little-known part of the story of the Chinese in Canada, and she has done so with love."
—Judy Fong Bates, Literary Review of Canada

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"Part homage, part mystery, part memoir, Finding Mr. Wong is a loving look at a life that is no less important a part of our Canadian story for its previously having been rendered invisible."
—Canada’s History

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