Special Announcement Regarding Paul Yee Celebration Dinner

March 2020 - As the global events concerning COVID-19 ("coronavirus") unfold, the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC (CCHSBC) Board of Directors is actively monitoring updates from our provincial and public health authorities closely. At this time, the Public Health Agency of Canada has assessed the risk associated with COVID-19 as low for the general population. While the risk level may be low, we have spoken to our guest of honour Paul Yee who lives in Toronto. After significant consideration, we have jointly made the decision to postpone our March 28th dinner to a future (undetermined) date. 

Given this fluid situation, we are offering guests the option to either:
  • Have their dinner credit held to our next event; or
  • Receive a refund for their dinner ticket(s).

For guests planning to attend our next celebration, don't feel obligated to email us. We will presume that those guests wish to have their dinner credit held. We encourage ticket holders to keep their credit in light of our volunteer capacity and processing fees. 

Guests who wish to receive a refund for their dinner ticket(s) should email us at info@cchsbc.ca. Please be aware that CCHSBC is run by volunteers (without staff support), and that we will require more processing time than usual. 

Should there be any questions and/or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our volunteers and donors who have been working hard over the past several months to put together this event.

Once again, we thank you for your support and attention to this important matter. We look forward to celebrating the achievements of Paul Yee and the other prize winners with you in the future.

CCHSBC 2020 Celebratory Dinner Honours Paul Yee

Join us at CCHSBC's Annual Celebratory Dinner honouring acclaimed writer, archivist, and historian, Paul Yee! The evening will showcase Yee's contribution to the Chinese Canadian community and include great food, raffle prizes, and more!

Additionally, we will be recognising our winners of the BC Regional Heritage Fairs, the Edgar Wickberg Book Prize, the Edgar Wickberg Undergraduate & Graduate Studies Prizes, the Larry Wong Prize for Chinese Canadian Community and Public History Prize, as well as the Drs. Wallace B. & Madeline H. Chung Prize for Chinese Canadian Community Archiving. This is an evening full of excellent stories and talent that you won't want to miss!

Date: Saturday, March 28, 2020
Time: 6:00PM - 9:00PM
Location: ​Floata Seafood Restaurant, 180 Keefer St.

​Student* Special - $40 per person - includes a CCHSBC Membership.  (A student is defined as a person currently studying at an educational institution full-time.)
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Early Bird Ticket Prices:
  • CCHSBC Members: $60 per person
  • Non-Members: $70 per person
  • Table of 10: $600
Regular Ticket Prices:
  • CCHSBC Members: $70 per person
  • Non-Members: $80 per person
  • Table of 10: $750

​​​Early Bird Sale has been extended to March 3, 2020! 
Biography: Born in Spalding, Saskatchewan, author, historian, and archivist Paul Yee grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Yee’s involvement with Chinese Canadian history dates back to his high school and university years with community engagement and academic research. He attended Lord Strathcona Elementary School, Britannia Secondary School, and earned degrees in Canadian History from the University of British Columbia (B.A., 1978; M.A., 1983). His M.A. thesis title is “Chinese Business in Vancouver, 1886-1914”.

Yee’s career as an archivist began as a summer student at the City of Vancouver Archives, and later a full-time archivist (1979-1987). He went on to work as the multicultural coordinator at the Archives of Ontario (1988-1991), and subsequently as a policy analyst at the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship (1991-1997). 

Yee is an award-winning author whose writing has illuminated the experiences of Chinese Canadians in works of both fiction and nonfiction for children, young adults, and adults. His seminal publication, Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver (1988) won the Vancouver Book Award in 1989. Saltwater City is based on the exhibit titled the same featured at the Chinese Cultural Centre as part of Vancouver’s centennial celebrations - the first exhibit to showcase artifacts, oral histories, and written records of Chinese Canadians living in Vancouver in the 19th and 20th centuries. Yee’s children’s picture book, Ghost Train (1996), illustrated by Harvey Chan, won the Governor General’s Award for English-language children’s literature (text), and was produced as a play in 2001. Other notable titles from Yee’s prolific writing career, which include over two dozen books and an opera, include: Tales from Gold Mountain (1989), Struggle and Hope: The Story of Chinese Canadians (1996), and Superior Man (2015). While writing poetry and short stories in his free time during his career as an archivist and policy analyst, Yee began writing full-time in 1997 and is a member of the Writers Union of Canada (TWUC) and the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators, and Performers (CANSCAIP). 

While he has been living in Toronto since 1988, Yee was actively engaged in Vancouver’s Chinese Canadian community during his time here. Yee was a founding member of the Pender Guy Radio Collective, volunteer at the Vancouver Chinese Cultural Centre (1974-1987), member of Katari Taiko (Japanese drumming group), as well as member and editor with the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop, a group of writers with whom he published the anthology, Inalienable Rice (1979), and the Vancouver edition of Asianadian magazine (1980). In 2008, Yee donated his personal papers, photographs, audio recordings and other media to the City of Vancouver Archives; they have since been digitized and are available for research online.

It is with great honour that we invite Mr. Yee back to Vancouver to celebrate his contributions to the Chinese Canadian community at our 2020 Celebratory Dinner.

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Thank you to our sponsors! Arsenal Pulp Press, Tradewind Books, Douglas & McIntyre, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Museum of Vancouver, Ming Wo, Chinatown BBQ, New Town Bakery, Vancouver Canadians, Walter Quan, Barkerville Historic Town & Park.

Paul Yee's Publications

 Juvenile Fiction

Adult Fiction, Anthology, Non-Fiction, Plays