- Person
- 1911-1999
AU Ming Shu (commonly known as AU Ming Lee) was born in China in 1911. He arrived in Newfoundland in 1938, paying the $300 head tax on Chinese entry.
His father was living and working in Boston, Massachusetts, however, its country's Chinese Exclusion Act prevented Ming Lee from joining him.
Ming Lee settled on Bell Island, a small island located off the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland in Conception Bay. There he owned a convenience store, then later a restaurant.
He had left behind in China a wife and a young daughter named Chew (b. 1937) who was born shortly before he left. It would be almost eight years before he returned to China for a visit and fathered his second child, another girl named Sherry (b. 1949).
The family would not reunite until the mid 1950s, after Newfoundland had joined Canada and the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. In 1955, Ming Lee’s wife and daughter Sherry arrived in Canada; their eldest daughter Chew stayed in Hong Kong to marry and immigrate to Boston in the early 1960s.
Ming Lee and his wife would have two more children, both born in Newfoundland: Janie (b. 1956) and Gary (b.1957). He would eventually live in the capital of Newfoundland, St. John’s.
His daughter Janie Au fondly recalls her father’s generosity towards children. “A memory I have of my father occurred when I was about ten years old, I used to go to a neighbours to play during the summer. They had a farm and about 12 kids so I liked to go there since was always another kid to play with. One day I saw my father coming up the road towards us and I thought he was coming to bring me home. But no, he had a box of popsicles with him (we used to sell them in our store) and he started to give all the kids popsicles. I found out later that he used to do this often.”
Ming Lee passed away in 1999.