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An Interview with Michael David Kwan
by Kiriyama Prize Manager, Jeannine Cuevas
JC: You entitled one chapter of your
book "Peaceful Haven” and another "The Magic
Circle.” Can you describe what those terms mean?
MDK: Ah, yes. First of all, Peaceful Haven. Peaceful
Haven was the name that my father gave the seaside villa where
we spent our summers. This was his wedding gift to my stepmother.
And that was what he intended the house to be—a peaceful
haven. It never really quite was that. Although it wasn’t
entirely not that, but there just were too many people around,
at least from my point of view, and too many activities going
on both on the surface and underneath the surface—hardly
what would be a peaceful haven.
The Magic Circle referred to the legation quarter
where we lived in Beijing. And at that time there was a wall
that went around it. And the intention of the wall was to
keep the foreigners in safely and the Chinese out. And for
a long time that was the way it was. The legation quarter
that I lived in was rebuilt at the turn of the century after
the Boxer Revolution, about 1902 or something—I can’t
remember exactly now— and, at that time, the foreign
legations all had garrisons that were stationed inside the
legation quarters as well. And there was a wide area of barren
land outside the wall, which was a kind of no man’s land
where the various garrisons used to play soccer, polo, and
so forth. The Japanese used it as a training ground. In the
late 1920s the rules had changed: the garrisons had gone and
the privileged Chinese were permitted to live there. And that’s
where we lived, but we were still sort of protected in this
area. And so that was what my stepmother called it: the magic
circle that kept us safe.
JC: So it was kind of a peaceful haven, too.
MDK: It was, yes, yes.
JC: So, within that magic circle you were sheltered, to some
extent at least, from the violence and the chaos that were
going on around you on the streets of China during the Japanese
Occupation. But you still describe some horrible things that
you saw—people being killed right in front of you.
MDK: Yes, yes.
JC: How do you think those experiences affected you later
in your life?
MDK: Well, you never forget things like that. I mean, you’re
walking in the street and you hear somebody yelling across
the street. And you look over and here’s this head—bouncing
across the road towards you, and blood splashing around all
over the place. You never, never really forget that. I think
that I was young enough at that stage to first of all react
with almost glee. Whoopee! This man has lost his head! And
then, awe. And then, horror. And those kinds of opposed feelings
stay in your mind always. I can’t watch, for instance,
a movie where there’s a lot of blood and guts. I can’t
watch that. I just cringe. And I’m sure that is a sort
of reaction to those experiences.
JC: Do you think that people who grew up in a time when there
was no war in their own country, for example young North Americans,
take peace for granted?
MDK: I think they do. Because I think North Americans have
been extraordinarily lucky in the sense that they have never
been invaded or conquered, and especially conquered. We can
see that both the United States and Canada were involved in
two world wars, and we don’t want to forget Pearl Harbor.
But even Pearl Harbor was removed from the American mainland.
And of course Canadians or Americans have never had bombs
thrown on them in their own land. So, this becomes something
removed. It’s not immediate. It’s not something
that could happen to me or my family or my friends. And I
think that’s what makes war so romantic. And there is
a certain romance about it, but you look at all those war
films that keep getting ground out. And there is a certain
romantic ideal there, as some sort of a great adventure. But
it isn’t that.
JC: No, I’ll bet not. I liked
the ending of [Things That Must Not Be Forgotten] a lot. It’s
hard sometimes to end a book, fiction or nonfiction. The ending
is always the stickiest part. But I think you very masterfully
ended the book with this conversation with your mother —well,
your stepmother actually the woman who raised you. There was
a real sense of literary closure there. But obviously your
life has gone on. You ended up in Canada, the winner of a
screenplay award and a playwriting award as well as the Kiriyama
Prize more recently. So, I’m curious about your experience
of immigrating here in 1963 just 15 years after Asian Canadians
were given the right to vote. Did you face prejudice when
you came here, or …
MDK: Not at all, as a matter of fact. If I had to think about
prejudice, I would think of only one little, very small, incident.
We were the first nonwhite family to move into the school
district that we decided to move into, and this is not far
from here. ___ Street, 20 blocks up the street from where
I am now. But Russel was the first Chinese child going to
this kindergarten. He spoke a little bit of English, but he
spoke more Chinese at that stage. And the only thing that
we noticed is that when we went out in the street, people
would come to their windows and the curtains would part ever
so slightly, and they would just peep out. (Laughs.) We couldn’t
find a babysitter. We had some friends who had children, and
they recommended their babysitter to us. And we would phone
up, and the babysitter would say, "Oh yes, I’ll
come.” But then, on the day, she wouldn’t show up.
And this happened a number of times. And then, finally, I
confronted the woman, and I said, "What is the matter?
Every time you say you will come, and then you don’t.
What’s your problem?” And the answer was laughable.
It was, "Well, I’ve never dealt with a Chinese child
before.” I said, "A Chinese child is just like any
other child. You feed it on time, and you put it to bed on
time, and that’s that!” (Laughs.)
JC: But you said you did experience a little bit of, I don’t
know, unpleasantness from the Chinese community here?
MDK: Yes. The Chinese community was and still is to some
degree very closed. And in those days the Chinese community
were mainly Southerners and Cantonese-speaking. I spoke Cantonese
fluently, but I’m a Northerner. I’m from Beijing.
I would go down to Chinatown and shop and people would chat
with me and say, "Oh, are you new here?” (Pause.)
"Yes, I am.” "When did you come?” "Oh,
six months, a year ago.” "Oh. Where are you from?”
And that means, where were you born. And I said, "Beijing.”
"Oh, you’re a Northerner.” Boom! The wall would
come down. To this day, I have very few Chinese friends. My
friends here are mostly Canadians.
JC: So the question I was going to ask you next may not make
any sense. I was thinking that people are so much more enlightened
now. You know, I was going to ask you about what brought about
that change. But I guess what you’re saying, really,
is that they’re not really any more enlightened. (Laughs.)
MDK: No, they’re not more enlightened, because now there
are more factions to deal with. Because in those days there
were just Cantonese and non-Cantonese. And now there are people
from Hong Kong, people from Taiwan. There are the local-born
Chinese, who are second and third generation, and there are
people from China. And everybody hates everybody else’s
guts! (Laughs.)
It’s really quite interesting, because when Things That Must Not Be Forgotten first came out, one of the local Chinese
newspapers interviewed me. And this man who did the interview
had read the book. And we had a long conversation, in which
we discussed the book and so forth. And he really seemed to
have appreciated the book. But the article he wrote was unbelievable.
The title of the piece was, "Michael David Kwan, Author
of Things That Must Not Be Forgotten, Preferred His Nanny
to His Natural Mother.” That was the title of this piece!
JC: That’s an awfully long title!
MDK: Yes, it was long. And then it went on, and the whole
idea behind this article was that, well, he should have been
a peasant. If he was a peasant or he came from the labor class,
he’d be all right. But he comes from a privileged class.
And he’s of mixed blood. Well, what right has he got
to write a book?
JC: But it is, of course, your story.
MDK: Uh huh. So you know, why should we want to read his book?
And I said to myself, Ah. But, on the other hand, people who
would read the article are not going to buy English books
anyway. So, I don’t really care.
JC: The Kiriyama Prize
aims to create a greater understanding among people in and
around the Pacific Rim. Do you think that books have the power
to do that?
MDK: I hope so. I hope so, because I remember a long time
ago when I was living in Hong Kong, by then grown up, talking
to my father about things that I remembered in the past and
asking him some specific questions. And he made this remark
—he said, that in a war, there are no good guys and bad
guys, because from each side’s point of view they’re
all good guys. So you have to take it as a situation where
reason, for some purpose, has flown for a period of time.
And then afterwards, when reason is restored, then we have
to find a way of making sense, so that we don’t repeat
these same mistakes. And I think that’s what it’s
all about really. Because in this book, I’ve tried to
take a very objective point of view of treating all the sides
involved in those rather extraordinary times, for what they
were doing. I tried very hard to keep that balance.
JC: I think you achieved it.
MDK: Thank you.
JC: Your son told me that you had never told him very much
about the things that you wrote about in the book. But he
seemed glad now to know about those things. Did you write
your book partially for your sons?
MDK: Oh, yes, yes.
JC: Children can be a powerful motivator.
MDK: Yes. You know our children never see us as we are. And
I think I know that I didn’t see my father as he was.
I idolized him when I was young, when I was a kid. And I think
that a part of that remained for the rest of our lives, but
I appreciated him more as I grew up and got to understand
him.
JC: And once you have children of your own….
MDK: Yes, yes. And now I say to myself, Well, these ones ought
to know. But it’s very, very difficult to say to three
young men, "Sit down here and let me tell you.”
(Laughs.) Where do you begin?
JC: Even though it’s hard to write a book, it’s
almost easier to write the book …
MDK: … and tell them to read it. (Laughs.)
JC: That’s a good strategy. I’ll have to remember
that. Let’s see. You’ve been back to China since
emigrating from there. What changes do you see in the people
there now, and what do you hope for China in the future?
MDK: Now that’s a very big question.
JC: Yes, it is. We may even have to flip the tape. (Laughs.)
MDK: Now, I went back to China for the very first time,
I think it was in 1980. At that time China was, well, the
Cultural Revolution was over, and China was just beginning
to open its doors to tourism. And I was a travel agent at
that point. And the Chinese government tourist agency invited
a group of Canadian travel agents to visit China, sort of
what they called a "familiarization trip.” So I
was one of that group, and I remember getting off the plane
in Beijing and hearing the announcement in Chinese, in Mandarin,
for the first time in 40 years, almost 40 years. I just felt
… so excited. And then having gone through that and gone
into the city, I was looking everywhere for the city walls.
And they weren’t there anymore. I remember asking the
driver, "Where are the city walls?” And the driver,
who was a young man, sort of looked at me, and said, "There
aren’t any city walls.” But of course he was too
young to have been there. And the only remnants of the city
walls were a few city gates that were still standing. There
are two that are south of Tienanmen Square. Very beautiful
ones. Everybody was dressed the same. Everybody wore Mao suits
in either dark blue or gray. Everybody seemed to be going
somewhere, doing something. There weren’t any beggars
in the street. One time in Shanghai on the Bund, we were walking
along the Bund and taking pictures and so forth. And I had
been taking pictures too. And there was such a crowd following
us, because there were so few foreigners in those days that
whenever we appeared there would be a mob scene. And some
would have English textbooks in their pockets—young students—and
they would rush to us and say, "Read this.” So,
somehow or other, I left my camera on the bench, and I totally
forgot it. And we were going to get up into the buses and
start going, when here comes this young fellow, and he’s
running, yelling "Hi …” and he had the camera,
and was coming to return it. And I thanked him very much for
it.
In 1995, the last time I was in China, I was
somewhere in Beijing, I can’t remember where. And I had
my camera slung around my neck, and this fellow came and looked
at the camera, and looked at the camera, and was very interested
in the camera. And then, finally, he said to me, "Is
that a Cannon?” And I said, "Yes, it is.” "Can
I see it?” "Oh, yes.” I didn’t take it
off my neck. "But, I would like to look through the viewfinder.”
And I said, "Well, you’ll just have to squirm in
there.” (Motions to neck.) So he squirmed in there, and
he looked, and then he said, "I want to buy it.”
And I said, "I’m sorry, it’s not for sale.”
And then he got a little bit belligerent. And he had a knife
in his pocket and he started to take this knife out. And I
said to him, "I’m not alone.” Actually, I was
alone. I said, "I’m not alone, some people are just
right over there. I think you better go.” And he looked
and he looked. And there were a couple of policeman around,
so he left. You see, it’s changed. But the changes are
even greater than from when I was there as a child, because
there were people who were destitute and people starving.
And there was none of that when I first went back. But in
1995, business was booming, everything was going, but there
were swarms of beggars again.
JC: Are you going to go back again?
MDK: I don’t know. If the opportunity presents itself
I might, but in 1990 when I came home after teaching for three
years, I said to myself, I’ve done what I set out to
do. And if I go back it will be for a visit. And I did go
back twice. Once in 1993, and then another time in 1995. My
cousin Julien, whom I wrote about in this book, died in 1996.
And after that I felt that, well, there’s no more link.
JC: Your family is here now.
MDK: My family is here. Sure I have friends [in China], who
were former students, but these are young people and they’re
getting on with their lives. It’s time to let go.
JC: Now you’re writing about the later experience of
going back to China. When will this next book be released,
do you imagine?
MDK: Well, I hope to finish … Well, it has been cooking
for quite some time. So it was a matter of writing the last
few chapters. So, I think by the beginning of next year it
should be finished, and then we shall see.
JC: Great. Well, we certainly wish you the best of success
with it.
MDK: Thank you.
JC: Thank you, David.
Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver BC
November 2000
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