April 4, 1957 - Saskatoon

Watermark Rising

Disaster. The South Saskatchewan River rose too rapidly from the spring thaw and flooded the farm. The crops were ruined and the house was swamped with water. Hank Lee had no insurance, neither did we, and we found ourselves back in Saskatoon with nothing.
Wayne’s father, along with his twin brother and Jack, bought the Hong Kong restaurant on 1st Avenue, and has spent the last year fixing it up. He renamed it ‘the Wa Kyu’ and opened it for business last week. It’s the first restaurant in Saskatoon to serve authentic Cantonese cuisine, not the awful canadianised stuff you get at the other restaurants. Wayne has a funny theory about how this bastardized style developed. He said the first immigrants here just took whatever work they could find, especially cooking jobs, even though many had no idea what fine cuisine was, much less how to cook it. Plus, they often just used whatever ingredients they could find. And this is what eventually caught on as Chinese food. Canadians have come to expect it and even like it, poor things. Well the Wa Kyu has all that—chop suey, chow mein, BBQ duck, fried rice and so on—presented in genuine Cantonese style. The Canadian customers seem to like it, and the Chinese customers—well, they just order what they want. Anyway, Wayne started working there as a fry cook for 150 dollars a month.
Ernie, my youngest brother, has made it here too and will begin university in the fall. He worked in the Hong Kong police office doing translations, so his English is very good. We are all living in a small bungalow behind the restaurant.