New Book Recommendation | “Ha Ha! Canada”
One book, ten provinces, dozens of lives.
Chinese edition: 《戏说加拿大》ISBN: 9781989987193 Price: 26.99 CAD
English edition: Ha Ha! Canada ISBN: 9781989987216 Price: 26.99 CAD
Publisher: North American Chinese Research Press
Project organiser: Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver
If Chinese Canadians living in different provinces were asked to draw on their own experiences and answer one question, ‘What kind of society is Canada?’, what would they write?
Ha Ha! Canada is a guide to life in Canada, written through the real-life experiences of ordinary people.
The book grew out of a nationwide writing initiative launched by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver. Community organisations and media outlets across Canada responded enthusiastically. Of the 155 submissions received, 57 were selected for publication. Their authors live across all ten Canadian provinces and represent different cities, professions and generations, as well as a wide range of migration journeys and personal backgrounds.
Their stories range from early cultural encounters to the contrasts and insights of working life, family and community. They explore Canadian institutions, rules and values, while reconsidering identity, belonging and civic participation. Together, they chart a journey from uncertainty and adjustment to building lives, relationships and homes in Canada.
Fifty-seven true stories offer fifty-seven windows onto Canada. Each is a self-contained slice of life; together, they form a portrait of Chinese Canadian life across all ten provinces, recording a generation’s shared experience of coming to know Canada, adapting, becoming part of society and gradually putting down roots.
Ha Ha! Canada is both a non-fiction record of an era and the immigrant experience, and a window onto Canadian society, Chinese Canadian communities and cross-cultural life. It will speak to newcomers and long-established residents reflecting on their own journeys, as well as readers from other communities, students and researchers interested in Chinese Canadian life.
We warmly recommend Ha Ha! Canada to all readers. We particularly encourage public, university and school libraries across Canada to collect both editions, preserving these true stories from all ten provinces and making them accessible to people from different cultural backgrounds.
One book, ten provinces, dozens of lives.
Read their stories, and discover the Canada we share.
Contact: hahacanadabook@gmail.com
