Person

Chin, Quen Shing

1923-2005

CHIN Quen Shing was born in Nanaimo, B.C. on April 13, 1923.

He was the eldest son and lived with three brothers and a sister. He also had an adopted brother and an adopted sister from his father’s other wife. His mother sold vegetables from her garden.

Quen moved to Vancouver, where his parents operated a rooming house. Later, they moved due to the construction of the Georgia Viaduct. In 1948, he moved to 15th Avenue and Ontario Street.

Quen attended one year of university. Afterwards, he married Nellie Bake Sun Wong. She was a young Vancouver-born Chinese woman who was an only child. They would have eight children in total.

Quen operated a grocery store on 34th Avenue and Victoria Drive.

In 1951, after his third child was born, he decided to join his brothers in Winnipeg, Manitoba who were in the restaurant business. First, he managed a restaurant in Winnipeg. Later, he became the cook for another restaurant that the families owned together.

A year or two after he moved to Manitoba, his wife and three children joined him in Winnipeg.

In the 1990s, he had a stroke that disabled him, but he lived for another 11 years.

His daughter, Nancy Sze, shared that Quen taught himself to speak Mandarin, practiced tai chi, took Arthur Murray correspondence dance lessons, and studied both accounting and electronics. He also helped people in the Chinese community.

His daughter’s most memorable memory of him was that he “was always learning new skills [and] playing the banjo in his spare time.”

He died on March 20, 2005.

Description supplied by collector/curator