Person

Wong, Benjamin Wah Bain

• Wong, Wah Bain
• Wong, Benjamin Bun

1907-1985

Benjamin WONG was born in Victoria, B.C. as WONG Wah Bain on May 3, 1907. He was the eldest of two brothers. His father, WONG Wing Fong, was born in [廣東 Guangdong] province in China and immigrated to Canada in 1889, where he worked as a grocery merchant in Victoria. Subsequently, he moved to Vancouver and started a business sewing uniforms on contract. He worked from home with his commercial sewing machines. Ben’s mother, Wong Yuen, born YUEN Chai Dan in Victoria in 1890, helped support her husband’s tailoring business.

The family moved to Vancouver in 1914, when Ben was 7, and settled on Keefer Street. In Vancouver, he attended elementary school at the Strathcona School. His experience at school was marked by the racism he faced, as the white Anglo-Saxon kids would frequently bully their Chinese and Jewish schoolmates; in response, the Jewish and Chinese kids, including Ben, banded together to avoid harassment. After elementary school, Ben had to work to support his mother and his younger brother’s education; he was never able to attend high school.

Ben initially worked as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Marble Arch Hotel near the CPR railway station. He also acted as a bodyguard, along with a friend, George Moy, for the Chinese Freemason Leader during meetings in Chinatown, throughout his twenties.

Ben met his future wife when he was 24. While working at the hotel, he came to the aid of Pearl Goon, a fellow Chinese Canadian who was being harassed on a streetcar. Pearl and Ben soon began a relationship, and married on October 17, 1931 at the Chinese United Church. Ben and Pearl had four children: Rod (b. 1932), Carole (b. 1936), and twins Roberta and Barbara (b. 1937).

During the Great Depression, Ben was laid off from his job as a bellhop, but later found work at the fish cannery to support his growing family. At the time, employment discrimination towards the Chinese was common, which made it additionally hard for him to find work. However, during WWII, white young men were drafted into the Canadian army, which left a shortage of white workers. The shipyards began to hire Chinese workers as replacements for jobs that had previously been off-limits to Asians; Ben found work at the Burrard Dry Dock Shipyard as a layout man, setting up plans from a blueprint and laying out the metal parts that needed welding.

In his free time, Ben was a member of the Chinese Hill Billies Band, which practiced regularly at his house on 439 Heatley Avenue in Vancouver. They called the house “Club 439,” as the house was a gathering spot for their single friends to hang out, drink, and dance.

Ben Wong passed away on March 23, 1985.

Goon, Pearl (1910-1999)

Description supplied by collector/curator