Education About Asia: Online Archives

Moving the Mountain

Back to search results
Download PDF

DIRECTED BY WILLIAM GING WEE DERE AND MALCOLM GUY

PRODUCED BY MALCOLM GUY, PRODUCTIONS MULTI-MONDE

DISTRIBUTED BY CINEMA LIBRE, 4067, BOUL. ST. LAURENT, SUITE 403

MONTREAL, QUEBEC, H2N1Y7, CANADA

1993. 85 minutes

Reviewed by Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong

In this informative and empathetic documentary, the filmmakers follow individual and family history to try to interpret Chinese roles in Canadian history. In many re­spects, this work complements other Chinese-Canadian fictional works like Bone, and Half Moon Cafe. It may also provide context and counter­point for the recent Chinese-Canadian feature-length film, Double Happiness by Mina Shum. Together, these works address the multicultural landscape of contemporary Canada with its ever-growing Asian populations, and should raise questions for students about the differences among Chinese diasporas.

Two men and a woman were sitting in chairs holding a baby, and two children were standing on either side of them
A William Ging Wee Dere became very close to James Wing (second from right in above photo), who, like Williams’ father, had to leave his wife (seated left), three children and father (seated center) when he emigrated to Canada. The photo was taken on one of James’s yearly visits to China.
A woman in a laundry room with an iron in her hand and another man standing next to her
William Ging Wee Dere’s father and mother in their laundry in Montreal.

William Ging Wee Dere and Malcolm Guy present the film as a quest for Dere’s personal history. To learn who he is, he seeks his roots: what kind of lives his father and grandfather led, especially as Chinese-Canadians in the early 1900s under various forms of institu­tional racism.

Chinese-Canadian history shares many traits with that of the U.S., including restrictive immigration and bachelor so­cieties. Canada imposed a head tax of $500 on Chinese immi­gration from 1885 to 1923, fol­lowed by the Chinese Exclu­sion Act, barring all Chinese immigration to Canada. The film uses these events and the later compensation/redress of this head tax to provide a basic structure. Within this, the docu­mentary loosely follows chro­nology and geography from Dere’s family home in south­ern China, to those of his grandfather and father who first came to Vancouver, and finally to Montreal. Dere’s ancestors were laborers and laundrymen, subjected to un­just legislations. After much struggle, with Chinese-Canadi­ans’ involvement in the Second World War and the subsequent repeal of the immigration act, Dere, his mother, and siblings all immigrated to Montreal. With the redress of the head tax, Chinese-Canadians, who survived many different forms of prejudice, have finally be­come full citizens of Canadian society. The film ends with a ritual visit to the ancestors’ graves, including Dere’s daughter opening a new, yet continuous, phase in Chinese-Canadian history.

Dere and Guy have as­sembled and interpreted varied materials—first-person narra­tion, archival news headlines, photos, TV news, footage of family gatherings, Chinatown scenes, and interviews with family members and friends. These are interspersed with solo performances by Chinese-Canadian artists to weave the histories of the Dere family and Chinese-Canadian families to­gether since the turn of the cen­tury. While it is refreshing to see the filmmaker in the film, making reference to his own role in making this documen­tary and inserting his own voice to the text, the film remains a largely non-self­conscious autobiography. Dere’s voice-over sometimes becomes too overpowering and one-dimensional even as it cel­ebrates the long struggle of his family and all Chinese-Canadians. Furthermore, no contextualization deals with other Chinese populations of Canada today, such as recent Hong Kong immigrants.

Overall, nonetheless, the film provides a wide-ranging and informative history of Chi­nese-Canadian life. The topic merits even more explorations within the constantly changing landscape and peoples of Canada.