Read Online AlliterAsian by Allan Cho - Free Book Online Page A

readings—one at the University of British Columbia and another at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) as part of a national book tour promoting her latest literary work, affectionately known as Egg on Mao . On the day of her reading at VPL, I spoke with Chong about her career trajectory, the content of her books, and the craft of writing. She is what one may expect from a member of Canada’s literati: articulate, well read, and profoundly inquisitive. But at the same time, the writer that we’vecome to know is down-to-earth, with a delightful sense of humour. These traits make me feel as if I’m speaking with an old friend, and the sense of familiarity is comforting.
    We travel back in time to the eighties, when Chong began her career in the public service. Chong speaks frankly of her early ambitions: “I was certainly shaped by living on the frontier, so far from what was seen as the centre, which was Toronto and Ottawa. I always wanted to be rooted where I was and also to be part of a bigger world.” Then came Trudeaumania. “I was affected by it,” she confesses. Chong took the bold leap, packed her bags, and relocated to Ottawa, she says, “inspired in part by Trudeau’s own vision of a country big enough with heart and ideas to hold us all.”
    After being recruited as an economist with the Department of Finance, she worked in a public service briefing capacity, dealing with natural resources. Then came an opportunity as a special advisor on BC issues, working with appointed cabinet minister Ray Perrault. Chong recalls many intense negotiations dealing with a range of matters relating to Expo ’86, the Vancouver Convention Centre, Canada Place, northeast coal, and the light rapid transit system. It was while working in this liaison capacity in Ottawa that Chong came to the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office and, around 1980, began serving as economic advisor to Pierre Trudeau.
    When Trudeau retired in 1984, Chong didn’t follow the various other leadership candidates, because she intended to take up a writing life. “That was my ambition,” she says. Having become friends with Trudeau, the two would talk about his early experience with Cité libre , the magazine that he cofounded and edited, and her own desire to embark on a career in writing. “When the opportunity came to go to China, he told me to go.” In yet another boldmove, Chong boarded a plane to join her boyfriend, now husband, in Beijing. In China, Chong would take on journalistic assignments here and there and even covered Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion Tour. How many of us recall the stunning photo of Hansen wheeling himself up the Great Wall of China? Cutting her teeth on human interest stories and refining her craft, Chong sent such articles back to Canada, sharing her letters across land and sea. While in China, she decided to visit her ancestral homeland and unexpectedly found members of her extended family. The resulting memoir traced generations of her family through stories of hardship, growth, and great social transformation. The rest, as they say, is history.
    Chong says that being in China gave her the foundation and impetus for her first novel. “This, of course, became the basis for my book and the play based on The Concubine’s Children .” The book was so well received that it stayed on the bestseller list of the Globe and Mail for ninety-three weeks, won the City of Vancouver Book Award, the Vancity Book Prize, and the Edna Staebler Award, and was shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Needless to say, all of this attention secured Denise Chong’s place as a voice that should be heard and followed. During Citizenship Week in 1995, she gave a speech entitled “Being Canadian,” which would be widely anthologized in the forthcoming years. Soon after this, other book titles followed, namely The Penguin