The Yellow Pear

Gary Watson is a former lecturer in Chinese studies at Queen’s University and is now a multimedia developer in Mississauga.

Canada has been the home of Gu Xiong and his family since his leaving
China in 1989. In The Yellow Pear, the tensions involved in negotiating
the passage between two cultures are the subjects of his beautiful
charcoal drawings and spare prose. With clarity and concision, Gu
describes in capsule essays (that are presented in both English and
Chinese) the cultural conflicts he and his family have experienced as
newcomers to Canada. These often involved simple confrontations with
consumerism and its tendency to rank individuals by their purchasing
power. Elsewhere, Gu ruminates on the uneasiness that accompanied his
gradual, though incomplete, integration into Canadian society. He
remains uncertain whether he will ever find a satisfying artistic space
in the gulf between China and his Vancouver home. Ultimately, though, Gu
is holding up a mirror to Canadian society, which can often ignore the
need for acceptance of differences among its many members. There’s
much to ponder in this small, elegant book.