Exhibit celebrates Chinatown’s Ing family

A month- long exhibit celebrating one of Chinatown’s earliest families will open Saturday at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum in Vancouver.

The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Ing Suey Tong Association of Vancouver and includes rare artifacts of overseas Chinese and historical figures of the Ing family.

“This is one of the oldest Chinese families in Vancouver,” said Yichuan Sang, the editorinchief of the centennial commemorative issue marking the event and a member of the exhibition’s organizing committee. “One hundred years ago, less than 10 Chinese families were living in Chinatown.”

Sang said the exhibit’s artifacts, taken from a safe kept in an attic, include 100- yearold Chinese newspapers and a receipt for donations to Sun Yat- sen, a Chinese revolutionary and the Republic of China’s first president and founding father, who solicited support in Vancouver in 1911 for his cause. Sang said that according to historical records, the Ing clan’s forefathers came to Canada to try to earn a living as early as the 1880s and that for 100 years, the association witnessed and participated in major events in Chinatown, such as the visit by Sun Yat- sen to raise money for the Chinese revolution.

Sang said the Ing clan wants to use the 100th anniversary to share their treasured history with the wider community so people can learn from the past.