VANCOUVER, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Hailed as "father of Chinatowns" in Canada, Dr. David Chuenyan Lai has for weeks been commemorated by friends and colleagues following his passing away on June 15.
Born in 1937 in Hong Kong, Lai moved to British Columbia in 1968 and became a professor of geography at the University of Victoria. He maintained a lifelong passion for preserving the history of Chinese Canadians.
Facing racism himself when he first arrived, Lai spent four decades documenting and sharing the history of Chinese Canadians and the development of Canada's Chinatowns, especially in Victoria and Vancouver.
"Dr. Lai had visited more than 40 Chinatowns in the USA and Canada," said Bobbie Jia, who has worked with Dr. Lai since 2011 co-writing a book on Chinese immigrants in Canada.
She called Lai a kind and generous man, as well as a prolific researcher.
"Dr. Lai published more than 300 academic papers and more than 10 books," she said, looking down at several photographs of Lai spread out on a table. "Many people call him the father of Chinatowns."
Dr. Lai received his PhD from the London School of Economics. After teaching in Hong Kong, Dr. Lai took a position at the University of Victoria, where his career spanned 35 years.
It was in Victoria that Dr. Lai began to research and write about the city's Chinatown, the oldest in Canada.
"David, like a lot of our colleagues around here, wanted to give... a greater presence of the contributions of Chinese Canadians," said Jan Walls, professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and a longtime friend of Lai.
Lai became directly involved in preserving elements of Chinese history in Victoria.
In 1981, he led the erection of the Gate of Harmonious Interest at Victoria's Chinatown. He also saved plaster pieces from the walls of an old immigration detention center in Victoria on which a Chinese poem was written.
Meanwhile, Lai was also an advocate for cultural diversity in Canada.
"He was very proud of the multicultural legacy of Canada," said Paul Crowe, an SFU professor. "He felt that if more people were educated about the role of Chinese in Canada, that education would eliminate some of the ignorance that supported tensions and frictions between Canadians of different backgrounds."
