34 - Wednesday, August 10, 1994 - North Shore News

Kids’ books for adults

From page 24

by a mountain in Paul Yee's
Breakaway.

In the Vancouver of the
1930s’ Depression, Kwok not
only has to battle poverty and
socially acceptable racism, but a
stubborn father whose public
denunciation of the “broken
legs,” idlers and gamblers, in
Chinatown has made his family
outcasts In their own cormmunilty.

Though Kwok is a talented
soccer player and gifted math
and chemistry student, his
chances of escaping a life of
drudgery on the family vegetable
farm look pretty slim. .

Yee, now multicultural curator
at the Ontario Archives, is a
Saskatchewan-born third-genera-
tion Chinese-Canauian who grew
up in Vancouver's Chinatown.
He has written several hooks on
the history of the Chinese
Canadian community, including
Saltwater City: An Illustrated
History of the Chinese in
Vancouver, That interest led to
Breakaway, which was inspired

Head set
to direct

From page 23

He apprenticed under Elaine
‘Mays of New York and idubert

Hohn in Canmore, Alberta, in ihe
early 1980s, exhibiting his works
in Alberta galleries along the way.

Head’s shift into the moving
picture industry came in ‘@2
when he worked for free as gaffer
on the low-budget film
Sentimental Reasons by
Edmonton director Jorge
Moutessi. By 1985 he was second
camera assistant for Anne
Wheeler’s Loyalties. \t was also
then that he made the big move
to Vancouver's North Shore.

“In '85 the film industry really
started. to take off in Vancouver
and | made that move here. I real-
ly haven't stopped working since.

_ it’s been pretiy steady for the last
Dine years.” . .

' Indeed. Since coming to the
West Coast, Head has worked on
the feature films Stakeout, Look
Who's Talting Too and the televi-
sion series MacGyver and 21
jump Street, The last decade has
seen him werk as camera opera-
tor or assistant on more than 60

television episodes, 100 national |

and international commercials
and mora than 40 feature films or
movies-of-the-week.

Last year he won the Lotus
Award for kis public service
announcement Joshua and Best
TV Campaign (B.C.) for the
Children’s Hospital.

“It (time) really does fly when
~vaeati’re having this much fun.”

Now he is putting the finishing
touches on his own 12-minute,
feature film, Table Manners,
which he plans on entering in
next year’s various film festivals.

“| kind of made the move
three years ago and decided that |
“ally wanted to direct and that if
{ sat around much longer, it
wasn’t going to happen.”

So by doing a variety of tasks
on a variety of sets, Head has set
~ngimself up to become a director.

Alt $2, Head has reached tne
career goals he set out for himself
to reach by 45, and he harbors no
aspirations of moving to Los
Angeles to further them. “i iove it
here,” he says.

With the film industry thriving
in Vanceuver, being Canadian is
ho fonger a disadvantage for
ambitious Canadian film-makers.

As Head will attest, the show
must go on, even for Canadians.

to some extent by the life of
Quene Yip, star centre-forward of
the Chinese Students Athletic
Club team who defeated every
non-Chinese squad in the
province to win the B.C.
Mainland Cup in 1933.

(n fact, Quene Yip, son of a
prosperous Chinatown merchant,
went on to play for the first UBC
soccer team, for Queens
University in Kingston, and to
become a chemist, writer and
translator. Yee hints at no such
bright future for Kwok-ken Wong
after his brief moment of individ-
ual glory in the championship
game.

The book ends on an ambiva-
lent, realistic note that is distinc-
tively Chinese in its emotional
tenor. While Kwok has been
enjoying his 15 minutes of per-
sonal fame in a pointless triumph
over a handful! of bullet-headed
racists, the family’s precious

mortgaged fields have been inun-
dated by a breach in the Fraser
dikes.

Kwok’s decision to abandon
his university hopes of “breaking
away,“ to be reconciled with his
father and save the farm and his
sister from an arranged marriage
seems perverse, but it’s calculat-
ed to remind us of all the “Quene
Yips" who didn’t have rich influ-
ential fathers and who sacrificed
their own dreams to ensure the
survival of their families.

in any culture, every “genius,”
every “hero” rises on the backs of
a hundred anonymous ancestors
who sacrificed themselves so that
he or she might exist — just as
every climber climbs, not the
mountain, but the bones of those
who went before and died trying.

Buy these books for your kids,
wait til they’re asleep and make
sure you’ve got fresh D-cells for
the flashiight.

With Salvador’s, ali you have to do
is add the ice and garnish for the
perfect Margarita every-time.
Enjoy Salvador’s Original (lime)

or Strawberry—now available

at your Government Liquor Store.

It's so easy...so delicious!

2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver
British Columbia

Canada V7J 3H5

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