by Kit Pearson
No more lifeboat drills, thank goodness. I was scared they would lower me into a lifeboat and it would float away, leaving Mother behind.
I just thought of another thing. Home is chewing on a stalk of sugar cane. Mother says they chew gum in Canada.
After we get off this ship, we are staying overnight with friends of Daddy’s. Then we will go on a train across Canada. We will stop in Regina to visit relations. Will they all want to kiss us? I don’t like being kissed by people I don’t know. I would rather shake hands or bow. I don’t even know what to say first to Canadians. Do you say “How do you do?” or just “Hello” or “Good morning”? Saying “Hi” is rude.
I asked Daddy about this and he said any of those would be fine. There is not one right thing. I like the way it was in Taipei. There was one proper thing. Christians always said “Pengan,” which means “Peace.” But there is no special greeting for church people in Canada.
Later
We had to pack everything up so we will be ready to go ashore. I hated shutting the trunk lid down on my dolls, Natasha and Emily. It was better when I laid them on their stomachs so they could not see it coming.
People kept stopping packing to check on Canada. The boys dance about and cheer. I am so glad my whole family is coming to Canada with me. I really do know they are the most important part of home.
Thursday, August 3, 1939
We are here in Vancouver at Daddy’s friend’s house. (It is much smaller than our house in Taipei.) We call them aunt and uncle even though they aren’t.
When we got off the ship, Uncle Ralph grabbed my mother and swung her right off her feet. She laughed! Will and Jon thought it was funny but it made me want to pull her away. Is this how Canadians act?
His wife, Aunt Thelma, smiles with her lips shut. You never see her teeth. But her eyes are nice.
At lunch, she gave me plain bread and butter when I didn’t want the salmon sandwiches she had ready. I love bread and butter. Mother was all excited because we were going to drink fresh milk. We hated it. Canned milk is so much better. Mother was disgusted with us.
After lunch, they took us to a park to play. It was strange seeing so many white people. I caught sight of one girl with bright red hair! Just like Anne Shirley.
The other thing that is amazing is hearing everybody talking English. I asked Mother if they didn’t speak other languages here and she said some did, but here most people spoke English just as most people in Formosa spoke Chinese.
Friday, August 4, 1939
On the way home, we stopped at a drugstore and had ice-cream sodas. I never tasted anything so good. They put two scoops of ice cream in a big tall glass and then some syrup and then squirt on fizzy stuff, which fills up the glass. They give you a straw and a long-handled spoon so you can get the last drop of ice cream. Mine was strawberry. Yummy!
When we got home, Daddy and Uncle Ralph were listening to the news on their big radio again and talking about war coming. A lot of grown-ups say there might be a war, but lots of others, like Mother, say it won’t ever happen. I don’t think I have ever met a German. I must ask Daddy if he knows any.
Saturday, August 5, 1939
Being on the train was exciting at first but we soon got tired and too hot. Then Mother got out our paper fans from Formosa. Even the flower pictures on the back looked cool. Waving them cheered us up.
We are going to sleep on the train tonight in curtained-off berths. Each one has a little window. I plan to stay awake and watch the world passing by. I have never seen the night move that way. We’ve only ridden on trains in the daytime. It is hard to imagine it.
Sunday, August 6, 1939
I stayed awake a long time. I was right about it being amazing to watch the night moving past my window. It was my own window, which felt special. I saw farmhouses with one light on and big dark barns and little stations, and once I saw a wild animal running across a field. It might have been a fox. The stars in the prairie sky look bigger than usual and they make different shapes here in Canada.
Monday, August 7, 1939
Mother has started reading Little Lord Fauntleroy to us. Even Will likes it because it has good pictures. Cedric sounds like a sissy but he isn’t. Jon said he would never call his mother “Dearest” and Mother pretended to be hurt.
I should think of something new for my list but I am too hot and fidgety. Mother calls feeling twitchy “having the peasly-weaslys-and-the-jeejams.” I don’t know how to spell it.
Tuesday, August 8, 1939
The prairies just go on and on and on with nothing surprising. But at sunrise, the sky grows enormous and streaked with rose and gold. Daddy says it is breathtaking and he is right.
“Next stop Regina,” the conductor is shouting. I can’t write more.
Wednesday, August 9, 1939
Great-aunt Harriet calls me “Harriet darling.” I like being called Hattie better but I don’t say so. When Mother’s parents died, Aunt Harriet took care of her and her brothers. Mother says she never made them feel like a burden. I do wish she didn’t keep patting me on the top of my head.
The boys and I slept in the bedroom that was Mother’s when she was my age. Aunt Harriet gave me a book which used to be Mother’s. It is called The Secret Garden and is by the same writer who wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy. I am saving it until I have a room I don’t have to share with little brothers.
Some cousins came after supper. They wanted us to say things in Chinese. Jon and Will did and the cousins laughed. When they went on pestering me, I said, “You are bad children,” in Chinese. But I would not translate what I said. Mother laughed.
When Daddy got the grown-ups talking about Hitler, the cousins left. I am glad they don’t live in Toronto.
Our train leaves very early tomorrow morning.
Thursday, August 10, 1939
Before we went to sleep last night, Daddy took us outside in our nightclothes and showed us how to find the Big Dipper. Jon and I saw it but I think Will just pretended. We will soon go through Winnipeg. I am too sleepy to write any more.
Much Later
I slept through Manitoba, most of it anyway. We are in Ontario at last but Daddy says we still have a long way to go. Canada is so much bigger than Formosa. It is wild here, with big rocks and little lakes and lots and lots of evergreen trees. The birds are different too.
We will get to Toronto tomorrow morning. We finished Fauntleroy and now we are going to start Winnie the Pooh. Piglet reminds me of Will. It is not a Canadian book. Daddy says he will find us one when we get to Toronto.
We have learned all the words to “O Canada” and “God Save the King” so we will be able to sing them when we start school. It is not our native land though.
Friday, August 11, 1939
Next stop Toronto. Daddy’s sisters will meet the train. I must put my book away or I might lose it.
Saturday, August 12, 1939
We have three aunts and a grandmother in Toronto. They are Daddy’s mother and his sisters. The aunts all came to meet us at Union Station. In Daddy’s stories they are children, but they are not children now and it is hard to believe they ever were. They laugh a lot and they tease Daddy as if he were a little boy still. The station is like a palace. Maybe not quite. But so big and grand.
They took us home to their apartment and fed us. They showed us their balcony where they watched the King and Queen ride by when they were here in May.
“I sat right here and she waved to me,” Grandma said.
“You should have stood at attention,” Jon told her, as though he were a grown-up and she was just a little girl. Everybody laughed at him, everybody but Mother. She never makes fun of us in public.
They talked about war coming too and about the Quintuplets. Now Mother and Jon want me to come and play Chinese checkers with them.
Later
I lost.
I forgot to write about the Quints. The aunts gave us some pictures of the Quintuplets. They call them “the Qu
ints.”
They are five girls all born at once, like twins or triplets. Aunt Rose showed us lots of pictures of them which she had pasted into a scrapbook. Imagine having four sisters who were all my age and looked like me and had the same birthday! It might be fun once in a while, but more often like a nightmare. How would you know who you were?
Sunday, August 13, 1939
We have moved into our new house. It is a rented half house on Bedford Rd. You can hear the people next door through the wall. But it is tall. There are four floors if you count the cellar. I have a little room of my own. It feels a bit lonely. I am used to sharing with Will.
There is no proper garden to this house, just a space they call the backyard. But there is a vacant lot just up the road with one great climbing tree.
Today was Sunday but it was not a day of rest.
Monday, August 14, 1939
We went to Eaton’s to get school clothes. It was huge and filled with things I had never seen before. Part of it is a bookstore and all the books are in English! Daddy found us a Canadian one called Beautiful Joe and he also bought Tarzan of the Apes for the boys.
Tuesday, August 15, 1939
I am too busy these days to think about Formosa much. People come and go. There are horses in the street pulling delivery wagons. Jon takes them sugar cubes when he can get any.
I have started reading The Secret Garden. Mary Lennox is like me in lots of ways. She has to leave India and everything is different for her when she comes to England. I like the story a lot.
Wednesday, August 16, 1939
My doll Emily came all the way from Formosa safely and then that awful, horrible Will threw her out the window and her head is broken. I was teasing him, but that was not a good enough reason. Her eyes came out and I cannot stop crying.
Thursday, August 17, 1939
Aunt Margaret took Emily to The Doll Hospital. They say they can make her good as new. Then Aunt M. gave me a new doll. She is as big as a real baby and she has the loveliest smile and big blue eyes. If you push a place in her back, she says, “Ma-ma.” She has pink clothes and white socks and shoes.
I am naming her Bella because that means “beautiful.”
Friday, August 18, 1939
I am forgetting to write about what makes Canada different. Well, one thing is the streets. In Formosa there aren’t sidewalks and stoplights. The road there is full of people in rickshaws, on carts, in cars, driving their water buffaloes, children playing, people carrying buckets on a yoke that sits on their shoulders. They carry water or vegetables sometimes. Once in a while, a sedan chair. People laugh and call out to each other and shriek at the children and make a lot more noise than Canadians. Canadians don’t talk to strangers much, but in Formosa nobody is a stranger. Here people obey more rules and the houses all have numbers and sit in a row.
Bedtime
We are in bed but it is still light out. I don’t see why we cannot stay up until it gets dark. It is like that poem “Bed in Summer” by Robert Louis Stevenson. He knew just how I feel.
When it gets dark, I still am homesick here, homesick for Taiwanese night sounds. We used to hear the lions in the zoo sometimes. And geta clacking along the streets. You don’t see clogs like that in Canada. Or hear them. Toronto has some noise, but not so friendly.
Saturday, August 19, 1939
The people in the other half of our house are moving out. New people are coming.
Aunt Rose took us to Sunnyside, where we went swimming in a pool. There was a high slide that went down into the water and a big kid pushed Jon so that he fell from the top. He landed halfway down on a metal rod and scraped his back and then he slid off and fell to the ground. I was furious and I cried but Jon didn’t. He just gritted his teeth and told me to stop making such a racket. I was feeling sorry for him one minute and wanting to murder him the next. Aunt Rose made us all come home and Mother put mercurochrome on his wounds.
Sunday, August 20, 1939
We were going to go to church this morning when Mother looked at Will. He was crying and he had stuff coming out of his ear and, when Daddy took his temperature, he had a high fever. “Poor Will,” Mother said. “The shoemaker’s child goes barefoot.”
It means that Daddy, being a doctor, should have noticed Will’s ear infection. Just like a shoemaker should see his child had no shoes.
Mother spent all day with him and left me and Daddy to get the meals. Jon was no help.
Monday, August 21, 1939
Aunt Rose has moved in with us and is helping Mother with the unpacking. Will is not all well but he is a little better.
After lunch, Mother is taking Jon and me over to Jesse Ketchum School to arrange for Jon and me to get enrolled. I wonder if we will meet our teacher. I don’t think so.
Later
It is a big school. Mother had to show our work from Formosa and prove we could do the lessons here. I saw a girl and boy who looked about our age, waiting with their father. I wanted to speak to them but it was not the right time.
I heard the father say, “Sit still, Elsie.” I think that was her name. She was looking at us over her shoulder.
Tuesday, August 22, 1939
I can’t sleep. I have decided to write about something that worries me in my Canada book. I don’t quite understand this thing. This is it.
I feel strange here because we are not different. Always we have been special. People have stared at us and talked about us and laughed at the way we look. I thought I hated it. But it is queer — I miss it. I can’t understand why it feels as though I am less interesting or something. I will think this over. I wonder if Jon feels it. If I asked, he would not admit it, I am positive. I feel ashamed almost.
Daddy says each human being is unique, one of a kind. But I feel much less unique in Toronto.
Wednesday, August 23, 1939
I visited Grandma today. It was sort of nice. Grandma tells the same story over and over. I wonder why she does not remember that she just told it.
When I came home, Will said he has learned a new Canadian song called “The Maple Leaf Forever.” He says it has a wolf in it. Daddy laughed and told Will that Wolfe was a general, not an animal.
Thursday, August 24, 1939
The war, the war, the war. They call it THE war now, as though it has already started. Mother still says they will not be so stupid. Aunt Anne says Mother is too innocent for words. I asked what she meant but she would not explain. I am sure it was unkind.
Aunt Margaret took me out for an ice-cream soda, which was scrumptious. I had chocolate this time.
Friday, August 25, 1939
We went to the movies and saw Charlie Chaplin. People laughed their heads off but I felt sorry for him. We saw Hitler in the newsreels. How can anyone believe what he says? He seems crazy. I am very glad he is not here in Canada.
I think I am beginning to stop missing Formosa and sometimes feel more at home here. I worry about going to school though. I have always wanted to but now I am not so sure.
Saturday, August 26, 1939
Mother took us to Boys and Girls House, which is a library filled with children’s books. I did not know there were so many books in English. I took out The Story of the Treasure Seekers and a fat book of fairy tales. In that library they are so nice and they think reading matters more than anything.
Beautiful Joe turned out to be terribly sad.
I finished The Secret Garden and I have started reading it over again. It is the best book I ever read.
Sunday, August 27, 1939
We went to Bloor Street United Church this morning. Mother stayed home with Aunt Rose, and Daddy and the boys and I went without them. This is the first time I have gone to church in Toronto. It was not the same as church in Formosa. For one thing, it was over much sooner. Then, when we said the Lord’s Prayer, everyone except the minister mumbled. They didn’t even say “Amen” out loud. They all shut their eyes and bowed their heads as though they were praying to their shoes. Eve
n Daddy did, although I could at least hear him.
But even in church, they talked about war and they prayed for guidance and we sang “O God, our help in ages past.” Jon and Will went down with the younger children but I shook my head and Daddy smiled and let me stay with him. When I got sleepy, he gave me a peppermint and a prescription pad and pencil so I could draw. I was glad to get home though and I read all afternoon.
Monday, August 28, 1939
The other side of our house is empty now. New people are moving in today or tomorrow. I am going to play outside all day so I can see them the moment they arrive.
Tuesday, August 29, 1939
Nobody moved in today. They were busy cleaning. But I was too shy to ask them any questions. Mother says she is sure the family will come tomorrow, although not until afternoon.
Wednesday, August 30, 1939
They came just before three. I could hardly believe my eyes. The girl is the one we saw in the office at Jesse Ketchum. Her name is Elsa, not Elsie. She is taller than I am and very thin. Her hair is as fair as mine. She has it hanging down in long braids. She wears glasses. She has a brother named Dirk who is Jon’s age. They don’t have little ones though. Mother baked bread and took them a loaf. She found out that their last name is Gunther.