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Posts from the ‘Asian American Canadian’ category

25T19 Berlin’s own piece of the Commonwealth

E18, B13.

In Berlin’s Westend is a 4-hectare site on Heerstrasse that is administered by an international commission under the protection of the British Crown. To that end, the site is a little piece of the United Kingdom, albeit in an unofficial capacity.

The British 1939-1945 War Cemetery is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) whose members are Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The cemetery is home to about 3600 burials, most of whom were aircrew killed in action over Germany in World War II. Of those buried, 75% are from the United Kingdom, but the next group are Canadians at 15%.

I’ve returned here on a warm overcast late-spring evening; feels different than my first visit here in late-November 2021 when the world slowly returned to travel and autumn prepared its cold continental grip. I’ve come back to re-engage with a Vancouver connection.

Known also as “Britischer Soldatenfriedhof” (British Soldiers’ Cemetery), the location is 1.5 km (1 mi) from Olympic Stadium.
Stone of Remembrance: “Their name liveth for evermore.”
Q.J. Louie was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 420th “Snowy Owl” Squadron 🇨🇦. On an Allied bombing raid over northern Germany, their plane was shot down, killing 5 of the 7-man flight crew, including Q.J. Louie, who was a member of Vancouver’s Louie merchant family.
“Per ardua ad astra – Flying Officer Q.J. Louie – Air Bomber – Royal Canadian Air Force – 16th January 1945”. The graves for the other 4 crew killed on the same mission are found along the same row 5G: A.K.Parker 🇬🇧, W.J.D.Partridge 🇨🇦, E.W.Watson 🇨🇦, and C.W.Way 🇬🇧.
Register of all persons buried at the Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery, April 2024 version.
On page 131 is the entry for Quan Jil Louie; his listing in the CWGC database is located here. He died 2 weeks shy of his 24th birthday.
A peek from the late-afternoon sun.

Q.J. Louie’s final fatal mission: Royal Canadian Air Force Bomber Command 420 “Snowy Owl” Squadron: 16 January 1945, evening takeoff from Royal Air Force base Tholthorpe (England); nighttime bombing raid with over 120 Allied Halifax bomber planes targeting Magdeburg in northern Germany; their Halifax III plane NA192 PT-Q shot down; 5 dead and 2 captured as prisoners of war. See Aircrewremembered.com and 6BomberGroup.ca.

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 26 May 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

San Francisco: Sam Wo tradition near the close

(Chinatown)

If a place provides repeatedly good reminders of personal cultural heritage through food, my expectation is one of a long-standing nature to the point of being eternal. But human beings are temporal and ephemeral, and this fact of nature must unfortunately extend to human institutions.

At address 713 Clay (near Kearny), Sam Wo (三和)* is a restaurant in San Francisco, operating as one of the oldest restaurants in the city’s Chinatown. The present owners have retired, their adult children are moving on, and the new ownership has put the future of the restaurant in question. The final day of operations is 27 January 2025, only a handful of days before Chinese New Year. Perhaps it’ll be a pause. And perhaps it’ll be gone.

I’d done my research prior to arrival, only to discover within weeks the restaurant would soon be closed. In the remaining weeks surrounding the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I promised myself at least one visit to Sam Wo each week until the end: that their excellent “wok6 hei3” (鑊氣) is no hindrance but an encouragement. The quality of their “stir fry essence” means every meal is delicious, with every bite and flavour pointing directly to memories of an upbringing raised by immigrant parents from China’s southern province of Canton and a big chunk of time spent walking and eating within Vancouver’s Chinatown in the 1970s and 80s.

I haven’t been here in the Bay Area very long, but in Sam Wo, I found a place a little like home, where I could also polish my rust in Cantonese (廣東話) and Toisan/Hoisan (台山語). I’ll be sad to see them go, and melt away into the annals of San Francisco’s much-storied Chinatown.

* The full name for Sam Wo is 三和粥粉麵, (read here left to right) whose first 2 characters represent “three harmonies” for congee (粥), broad flat rice noodles (粉), and thin egg noodles (麵). Historically, Chinese was written right to left.

The place, the food …

2025 postscript: there are new owners, and the new re-opening is Friday, September 5.

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My Berlin: Chinese-Canadian Q.J. Louie at the Commonwealth War Cemetery

Above/featured: Cemetery view facing west, from the shelter building to the Stone of Remembrance, Cross of Sacrifice, and Terrace in the distance (WCL-X70: 14/21mm).

There’s a presence from western Canada buried in eastern Germany.

In Vancouver, Canada, the H.Y. Louie family has long been a part of the Chinese-Canadian community and the overall merchant community. Their current business holdings include the London Drugs chain of stores and the IGA grocery-store chain; both are well recognized throughout greater Vancouver.

One member of the family is resting permanently 8000 kilometres away in Berlin, Germany. An important goal in my return to the German capital city is a visit to the cemetery where a member of the Louie family, Q.J. Louie, is buried. It’s never been a matter of if, but when I return to Berlin.

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Komagata Maru Memorial, 100th anniversary : Vancouver, BC, Canada - 23 May 2014, fotoeins.com

Vancouver: “Komagata Maru” centenary (2014)

I wrote previously about the Komagata Maru incident and its importance to the South Asian community in Vancouver and Canada. The incident is one chapter in a long history of racism in the city, province, and country. One of the plaques presented to the Khalsa Diwan Society reads:

British Columbia – Motion of Apology –

On May 23rd, 2008 the Province of British Columbia introduced and endorsed a motion to formally apologize for the events of May 23rd, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru were denied entry to Canada.

Motion No. 62, The Honourable Michael de Jong moved: “Be it resolved that this legislature apologizes for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru, stationed off Vancouver harbour, were denied entry by Canada. The House deeply regrets that the passengers, who sought refuge in our country and our province, were turned away without benefit of the fair and impartial treatment befitting a society where people of all cultures are welcomed and accepted.

Honourable Michael C. de Jong, Q.C., Minister (Finance), Member of the (B.C.) Legislative Assembly.

The photos show a number of people who attended the commemoration event. Their faces reveal (what I term as) “mixed burdens of survival, relief, and accomplishment” as well as “joy and gratitude”.

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Vancouver: Komagata Maru and echoes of racism in Canada

Years have come and gone, and Canada is a different country on a better course than was set out in 1867. And yet, the ghosts of prejudice still haunt us, right up until today.

(Duncan McCue is a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.)

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