A black and white photo of children supporting a Chinese lion head and body. Only there legs and knee socks are visible. They are standing in a park with a fence around it in the background.
A group of children operating the Chinese lion head and body, which is now part of the Vernon Museum’s collection, circa 1935.

Asian Heritage mONTH

The Chinese Lion Head in 1977.

With May being Asian Heritage Month, it is a perfect time to uncover one of the Vernon Museum’s most fascinating, but rarely seen, artifacts.

In 1985, a traditional Chinese lion head was donated to the museum by the Chinese Free Masons. Due to its fragile condition and rarity, the head is rarely put on display, but spends most of its time in a custom-made storage container.

It is made from a framework of bamboo and wire, with brightly-coloured paper fleshing out its shape. Levers and pull-strings on its underside allow the eyes and mouth to be manipulated, and a long swath of fabric forms its body.

aN iMPORTANT cULTURAL aRTIFACT

The Chinese Lion Head in 1983.

Although its exact age is unknown, the head is believed to be more than 120 years old, and was the first to be used in Vernon. This incredible artifact made appearances at many important city events, including festivities hosted in honour of B.C.’s 100th Anniversary in 1958.

The head was also used at local Chinese New Year celebrations. While the traditional dragon dance requires at least nine performances, lion dances only require two, with one managing the head and one the body. Vernon’s lion costume was usually operated by two members of the local Chinese community, Walter Joe (1916-2005) and John Wong (1921-2001).

Lion dancing is believed to have originated in either the Han (206 BC-220 AD) or Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), and has continued to evolve as form of cultural expression ever since.  

 

To explore more of Vernon’s history, check out our other blog posts

Gwyneth Evans, Research and Communications Coordinator

 

 

 

 

(Left) Portrait of Betty Kwong in the 1930s; (Right) Betty’s Roll of Honour certificate from 1934.

A Famous Brother

Larry Kwong of Vernon is celebrated for being a gifted athlete, and the first hockey player of Asian descent int the NHL. However, his sister, Betty Kwong (later Chan) was no slacker either.

Betty was born in approximately 1920 to Ng Shu Kwong (1866-1929) and Loo See Kwong (1883-1943). Ng Shu immigrated to Canada from China in about 1882, and eventually set-up a general store in Vernon called the Kwong Hing Lung Grocery. It was perhaps the father’s determination to succeed (he tried to seek his fortune as a gold miner before he became a merchant) that encouraged success in the fifteen Kwong children.

A gifted sister

Betty was academically gifted, and was an honors student at the Vernon Public School (now known as École Beairsto Elementary) by the time she was in the sixth grade. A year later, Betty was awarded a certificate for placing first in her class in “proficiency, regularity, and punctuality.”

When she was fourteen, Betty took her high school entrance examination and earned the highest grade among all students in the Okanagan Valley; she placed just behind Florence Tamboline of Vancouver, who earned the highest grade in the province. Betty’s achievement was recognized when she was awarded a Governor-General’s Bronze Medal.

As an adult, Betty moved away from Vernon, but kept an interest in the area due to her status as the family’s self-appointed historian. Her local legacy continues to be felt in the many photos of early-Vernon life she donated to the archives.  

Vernon Vanguards of Winter Sports

If you are interested in learning more about Larry Kwong, the Museum and Archives of Vernon is hosting a Winter Sports Display featuring several athletic vanguards, including Kwong, Josh Dueck, and Sonja Gaudet

 

Gwyneth Evans, Research and Communications Coordinator

 

 

 

 

the roaring twenties

January 3, 2020

It’s hard to believe, but the ‘20s have rolled around again. Very few of us experienced the 1920s, but it is arguably one of the most celebrated decades in popular culture, immortalized, almost to the point of cliché, as an age of modernity, jazz, and flappers. But what was really going on in Vernon one hundred years ago, in 1920?

1920 began with a cautious optimism that the year ahead would bring “the zest to aspire, to struggle and, if it may be to attain.” The Vernon News of January 1 reported that the previous year had been somewhat of a disappointment; it began with so much enthusiasm and gratitude for the end of the Great War, but this elation quickly faded as the reality of what the world had experienced for the last four years began to sink in. 

 

 

Photo of Vernon, taken from East Hill, in 1920

The newspaper cautioned against too much of the “shoddy sense of optimism that throws a base of unreality over the future,” adding that “the period which opens up before us will demand a good deal of grim determination … comfortable platitudes will have to be discarded, and a realization reached that though the war is over, it still remains to be paid for.” It would take several months for the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties to overshadow the darkness of World War One.

The prosperity that came to mark the decade was felt even in the Okanagan Valley, where an exceptional crop year in 1919 produced more than six million dollars, nearly two million more than was accumulated in 1918. This figure accounted for more than 80% of the fruit grown in B.C. that year. The valley had cemented its place in food-production, and the ‘20s was a period of agricultural boom.

On a darker note, it was also during this time that the Vernon Internment Camp finally closed, nearly two years after the war had ended. Hundreds of men, women, and children were kept behind barbed wire fences in an age where fear and suspicion reigned supreme, until they were released in February of 1920. Among the freed were eight to ten children under the age of five who had never experienced life outside of the camp.

The 1920s was the age of women’s suffrage. In June, Nellie McClung, Canadian author, politician, and suffragette, presented at Vernon’s Empress Theatre. Her theme was “The Building of a New World.” She discussed the importance of uniting with those one views as different or foreign from themselves in the wake of a broken post-war world. The Vernon News states that “none who heard this gifted author and speaker for the first time failed to have their most sanguine expectations more than realized.” Groups like the National Council of Women were very active in Vernon, its members inspired by suffragettes like McClung and the group’s founder and Vernonite Lady Aberdeen.   

Over this period, Vernon boasted both the biggest Chinese community in B.C.’s interior (500 individuals), and experienced the largest increase in Masonic Lodge membership in the history of the province. A training school for nurses was started up again at the Vernon Jubilee Hospital in November of that year. Clubs that were disbanded during the War were reformed, factories were opened, and new roads were built.

Vernon and the Okanagan Valley experienced a significant number of changes during the 1920s, as the district crawled from the wreckage of the First World War and experienced a period of (unfortunately short-lived) prosperity. Reflecting on the events of a century ago makes you wonder what this round of the ‘20s holds for our city of Vernon.

Gwyn Evans