The Concubine's Children

Denise Chong’s nonfiction book, The Concubine's Children (1995), is a partial family history, tracing back two generations to explore the how and why of various family members' choices, and the ramifications of their choices through the generations. The story culminates in Chong and her mother's trip to China, where her mother meets two of her siblings for the first time. Chong constructed the book from letters, interviews, old photographs, and her own recollections. The Concubine's Children has met with widespread praise for its clear and candid style and its honest treatment of the often sensitive subject matter. The book has received many awards, including the City of Vancouver Book Award in 1994, the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, and the VanCity Book Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Governor-General's Literary Non-Fiction Award.

The Concubine's Children begins with Denise's grandparents, Chan Sam and May-ying. Chan Sam is a dedicated man, whose single overriding goal is to provide for his family. After marrying Huangbo, he leaves his native China to move to Canada to make money. Chan lives alone in Vancouver, Canada for many years, sending money back to his family in China; but his loneliness prompts him to send for a concubine, a second wife, to keep him company in Canada. His concubine's name is May-ying. Chan and May-ying's first two children are Ping and Nan. On a trip back to China, May-ying, pregnant with her third child, whom she believes will be a boy, decides to leave her daughters in the care of Huangbo. She and Chan then return to Vancouver, and May-ying gives birth, not to a son, but to a third daughter, Hing.

May-ying is disappointed by the baby. She experiences great shame over what she interprets as her inability to bear healthy sons, which she thinks, following the Chinese conventions of the day, are the most desirable of children. In fact, May-ying believes that bearing sons is important in accumulating the merit required to be reborn into better conditions in the next life. However, as time goes on, she is further disappointed in Hing because Hing, who eventually adopts the English name Winnie, is a plain girl, quite unlike the beautiful May-ying. Winnie, however, is very intelligent and throws herself into her schooling, which she sees as an eventual way to a better life. For a time, May-ying dresses Hing as a boy, unable to accept her lack of a son. Later, she adopts a Canadian boy named Leonard in English, and Gok-leng in Chinese. May-ying and Winnie are continually juxtaposed throughout the book for their different characters and approaches to the various situations that befall the family.



Over time, May-ying's relationship with Chan falls apart; nonetheless, she continues to meet his mandate that she send him money in China, which he uses to enrich his family there. To do this, May-ying works as a waitress in Chinese tea houses in Vancouver, where she is exposed to, and over time increasingly partakes in, gambling, drinking, and men. Of these men, she has the longest relationship with a gambler named Guen, but he never takes their relationship as seriously as she does, and in the end, he abandons her. Her other, shorter relationships are more transactional.

May-ying is a terrible mother to Leonard and Winnie, mostly neglecting them both. Her guilt over her perceived failure as a mother, and frustrations with her life in general, surface often as anger towards her children. She refuses to learn English, instead, relying on her children to bear the brunt of communicating for the family. The children are often shuffled from boarding house to boarding house, wherever is cheapest. Winnie eventually escapes her difficult life, going on to marry and bear five children of her own – including the author of The Concubine's Children, Denise.

Denise recounts that she was inspired to research her family history after moving with her partner, TV correspondent Roger Smith, to Beijing in 1985. While living in Beijing, Denise convinces her mother to come to visit her. Denise has planned a trip to Chang Gar Bin, the village where Chan Sam and his Chinese family lived. This is also where Winnie's sisters Ping and Nan (whom she has never met) were raised. Winnie agrees to the trip; the last chapter of The Concubine's Children details Denise and Winnie's reunion with Winnie's sister, Ping, and half-brother, Yueng (Nan having passed away many years earlier).



The material that makes up The Concubine's Children first appeared as an article in Saturday Night magazine; editor John Fraser urged Denise Chong to write a book. Chong has also converted the book into a stage play. It debuted in 2004 in Nanaimo at TheatreOne, under the direction of Rick Scott.