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Bernice Chan

Suyin Looui has a faint memory of visiting Oxbow Restaurant as a child. The diner was opened by her grandfather, Louie Ser Dour, in the Canadian town of Oxbow in southeast Saskatchewan, and served dishes such as chop suey and chow mein.
But it was not until decades later that she thought about the restaurant again. The London-based creative producer and director was on maternity leave after having her first child and became interested in learning more about her roots.
She decided that she wanted to go on a road trip in Canada to visit the cafe with her father, Steffan, and ask about his memories of growing up there.
That turned into an idea to also speak to other Chinese-Canadian immigrants who have operated cafes – which Suyin defines as small family-owned restaurants – along the Canadian Pacific Railway, a train line that weaves across the country from Montreal to Vancouver.
“The thing that was most important to me, and the questions that informed the journey were, why did you come here? And then, obviously, what was it like when you came? But also, what did you want to pass on?” says Suyin, who is now in her forties.

The result is a Webby Award-nominated multimedia online project called Sons & Daughters that documents her family’s journey to Canada and tells the stories of 30 other Chinese-Canadian cafe and restaurant owners and their families.
Other Chinese-Canadians have often used food as a vehicle to tell the stories of Chinese immigrants in Canada, from author Ann Hui and chef Jackie Kai Ellis to documentary filmmaker Cheuk Kwan.
But Suyin wanted to focus more on the personal experiences of these immigrants, the places they worked in and the legacy they wanted to leave behind.
“I wanted to hear what people were hoping for, like, what were your hopes and dreams? What did you love? What were the moments of joy? What are the things that you love about this town, and what did you want to pass on to your sons and your daughters?
“Sometimes people have very different stories of the way that they would try to pass on a better life to their children,” she says, adding that the concept of sacrifice plays a large part in these tales.

It was eight years ago, when her father was already in his late seventies, that they embarked on the first of three road trips covering the locations where her father lived and worked. The following journey was interrupted by her having a second child and the Covid-19 pandemic.
By the time they completed their third outing in 2022, her father was in his early eighties.
Suyin’s grandfather arrived in Canada from Taishan, in China’s Guangdong province, in the late 1940s and worked in a series of Chinese-Canadian cafes before saving up enough money to buy shares in Oxbow Restaurant in 1957.
In the early 1950s, Steffan, who was nine years old at the time, joined him in Canada, as did his six-year-old nephew.
Suyin’s grandfather was the cook at the Oxbow Restaurant and enlisted Steffan to work there every day after school in his early-to-mid teens.
“[I] came back from school at 4pm, worked here until about 10pm, and then went to sleep. The next day’s routine was the same, seven days a week, 364 days a year, and we closed one day for Christmas every year,” Steffan told Suyin.
Suyin later reflected: “I had no idea how tough things were, how much work there was. Or perhaps I did not remember, caught up in my own formative childhood and teenage years growing up in Vancouver.
“It is only through making Sons & Daughters that I began to understand the depth of our family’s immigration stories.”

While Suyin speaks basic Cantonese, she felt her easy-going father – who speaks Taishanese, a language spoken in Taishan – could help initiate conversations with restaurant owners by connecting with them through a shared language and on a cultural level.
She says that her status as “an outsider from the UK” meant she was initially “really nervous” about speaking to people, and was concerned that they would not want to engage with her.
“So [my father] had those initial conversations, and he really created an opening for me to speak with them.”
In reality, many welcomed the conversation and quickly revealed their personal stories.
“I was actually more surprised by the incredibly warm and friendly experiences,” she says, highlighting one conversation in particular.
“In Toronto, this guy Alex Leung has a little takeaway called South Pacific that he runs with his mother Susanna.
“He said, ‘Life without pain, there is no joy.’ He basically says life in the cafe is heartbreaking and exhausting but [there is] also, like many said, a lot of laughter, and it really brings them together.”

Suyin’s interest in the Chinese-Canadian diaspora began over 20 years ago when, in her twenties, she worked with organisations such as the Chinese Canadian National Council – which advocates for equality and justice – and the Multicultural History Society of Ontario.
She says back then, not much was written comprehensively about the experience of Chinese immigrants in Canada or Chinese-Canadians – for example, the impact from racist federal policies in the early 19th century that resulted in many being relegated to working in places like laundries and restaurants, until the end of World War II.
However, her interest in the topic fell by the wayside as she became busy with her career in the UK, which she juggled alongside completing a master’s degree in New York.
Currently, she works in the realm of interactive production, from augmented reality to mobile games. She is also part of a collective called Universal Everything that worked on a project with filmmaker Zhang Yimou in Macau in 2024 and showcased its work at the 798 Art District in Beijing in late June.

But she says that she always felt the pull of the Chinese-Canadian diaspora, especially now it has evolved.
“It’s become a new story, the story just has changed so much. It’s become more accepting, and has become more nuanced, and it feels fresh in a way,” she says.
She admits that while she is not a journalist or a documentary filmmaker, she could have delved deeper in her interviews with people.
For her, Sons & Daughters was more of an art project to document places and faces, as well as the menus – though she did not want it to be focused on the food, per se.
“For me, it was about documenting the cafe and the people who work there, and trying to get a sense of what their lives were like,” she says.
“And in the places where I didn’t get a portrait of a person, I would just try to get a sense of the cafe, just to see what these spaces were like as you cross the country.
“I call them cultural icons, because they’re little pieces of architecture that have a lot of Chinese history within them. [But] people don’t think about them in that way. They think of them as somewhere to get Chinese food, but actually it’s a part of our history.”

But, most importantly, the time spent on the road trips brought the father and daughter closer together.
“Through these travels, I also noticed his deep calm and quiet resilience,” Suyin says of her father. “My dad did not complain about hard work, and always just got on with it.
“On many occasions, I wanted to stop doing the project because it felt like such a daunting mission, but I felt compelled to keep going.
“When I asked him to come along for the third and final journey, he had just turned 80 and he answered, ‘Well, who else is going to drive you and translate?’ This is very much my dad.”


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Food and Drinks

Chinese-Canadian families and their restaurants get their stories told in Sons & Daughters

Sons & Daughters creator Suyin Looui (left) with her daughter and father Steffan in front of the Chinese-Canadian cafe he worked in growing up. Looui’s project tells stories of Chinese immigrants in Canada and their experiences in such cafes and restaurants. Photo: Suyin Looui

Suyin Looui and her father Steffan, the father-daughter duo behind Sons & Daughters. Photo: Suyin Looui

Sons & Daughters was nominated for a Webby Award, given for excellence on the internet. Photo: Suyin Looui

Steffan Looui sits down for a meal at Oxbow Restaurant, the Chinese-Canadian restaurant he worked at growing up. Photo: Suyin Looiui

Steffan Looui after alighting a train as part of many rail journeys through Canada for the Sons & Daughters project. Photo: Suyin Looui

Looui’s interest in the Chinese-Canadian diaspora began when she was in her twenties. Photo: Suyin Looui

A classic Chinese-Canadian cafe table setting with soy sauce alongside seasonings and sugar. Photo: Suyin Looui

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China Wine Club founder Camden Hauge. Photo: Robert Nilsson

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Wine lovers take part in a China Wine Club event. Photo: Graeme Kennedy

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Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Online project tells immigrant stories of restaurant and cafe owners from Montreal to Vancouver, and brought its maker and her dad closer


Online project tells immigrant stories of restaurant and cafe owners from Montreal to Vancouver, and brought its maker and her dad closer.


Chinese-Canadian families and their restaurants get their stories told in Sons & Daughters

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Online project tells immigrant stories of restaurant and cafe owners from Montreal to Vancouver, and brought its maker and her dad closer

Online project tells immigrant stories of restaurant and cafe owners from Montreal to Vancouver, and brought its maker and her dad closer