Chinese-Canadian families and their restaurants get their stories told in Sons & Daughters
Online project tells immigrant stories of restaurant and cafe owners from Montreal to Vancouver, and brought its maker and her dad closer
Suyin Looui has a faint memory of visiting Oxbow Restaurant as a child. The diner was opened by her grandfather, Louie Ser Dour, in the Canadian town of Oxbow in southeast Saskatchewan, and served dishes such as chop suey and chow mein.
But it was not until decades later that she thought about the restaurant again. The London-based creative producer and director was on maternity leave after having her first child and became interested in learning more about her roots.
She decided that she wanted to go on a road trip in Canada to visit the cafe with her father, Steffan, and ask about his memories of growing up there.
That turned into an idea to also speak to other Chinese-Canadian immigrants who have operated cafes – which Suyin defines as small family-owned restaurants – along the Canadian Pacific Railway, a train line that weaves across the country from Montreal to Vancouver.
“The thing that was most important to me, and the questions that informed the journey were, why did you come here? And then, obviously, what was it like when you came? But also, what did you want to pass on?” says Suyin, who is now in her forties.
The result is a Webby Award-nominated multimedia online project called Sons & Daughters that documents her family’s journey to Canada and tells the stories of 30 other Chinese-Canadian cafe and restaurant owners and their families.