Devon Dick
RAY CHEN'S recent book The Shopkeepers holds professional and personal interest. It is the story of the Chinese in Jamaica from 1854-2004, told by many Chinese-Jamaicans mainly in the form of narratives. These interesting personal recollections are welcomed additions to the story of the Jamaican people through Chinese eyes.
This book has a narrower focus than Walton Look Lai's The Chinese In The West Indies 1806-1995: A Documentary History (1998).
Shopkeepers is the story of the Chinese migration to Jamaica, beginning with the arrival of 472 Chinese from the labour conditions of Panama in 1854.
There is the story of the Chinese involvement in the Jamaican church, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. There are brief profiles on Sisters Marie Goretti Lowe, Avril Chin Fatt, Grace Yap, Marie Chin, Mary Benedict Chung and Irene Chen. There are profiles on Rev. Fr. Kenneth Kong, Alfred Lee Sang and the most well known Richard Ho Lung. There is also an account on the religious beliefs of Chinese. It examines issues from a Jamaican perspective, such as the Chinese church, 'drop pan' game, important Chinese sports personalities, Chinese cemetery, public school and Benevolent Society. The book outlines Jamaican Chinese surnames and their meaning; photocopies of contracts and regulations concerning immigration. The book also shows an appreciation of patios with the use of 'wan luv' and 'nuff Irie'. In short, the book explores the culture and customs of Jamaican-Chinese.
A WELCOME ADDITION
This book is a welcome addition to the story of minorities in Jamaica writing their story. This follows the work on the story of Indians as written by Laxmi and Ajai Mansingh in Home Away Home: 150 Years of Indian Presence in Jamaica 1845-1995 (1999) and the story of the Jews in Carol Holzberg's Minorities and Power In A Black Society: The Jewish Community of Jamaica (1987).
There are two puzzling things about the book. The first is why is Ray Chen credited with being the editor and compiler when all the narratives that I read were edited by Sonia Gordon Scott? Scott should have been credited as the editor. The second has to do with the cover photograph which is a picture of a typical sugar plantation on which the first Chinese labourers probably worked. I was expecting a picture of a shop.
Perhaps my preference for a picture of a shop is based on my parents having been shopkeepers. My grandfather was a 'chiney man' while my father was 'half-chiney'. My father had a Chinese surname but changed his name by deed poll and took his mother's surname, 'Dick'. He along with my mother operated a grocery shop and parlour.
OUTLOOK OF LIFE
My early life was, therefore, spent in the shop and has shaped my outlook of life in so many ways. My father, of blessed memory, insisted that our shop, the largest in Airy Castle, St. Thomas, was to be the first to open and the last to close each day. He believed that the early birds got the most worms. He would also open the shop window for a couple hours on a Sunday morning before we went to church so that persons who did not have a refrigerator could buy perishables. I remember him also for the neat way in which he would wrap flour, sugar and salt.
However, it was really my mother who managed the shop and she had business savvy. I remember at Easter and Christmas time my father and I would argue with 'Mama' about the number of breads or buns that she would order. We believed they would spoil. And every year she was proven right and the goods sold off.
Shopkeeping was my life. I remember when as a student on holidays from Calabar there were times I had to manage this big shop on my own, including driving alone from St. Thomas to West Street, Kingston, to purchase goods. On one occasion, while returning home with the goods, the police stopped me at Yallahs because they believed I looked too young to have a driver's licence. They even enquired of the 'Chiney shop' to which I was taking the goods.
Long live the shopkeepers.
Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of Rebellion to Riot: the Church in Nation Building.
