Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [2]
The actual writing was not any easier. My train of thought was constantly interrupted and distracted by my addiction to accuracy: accuracy of historical fact and accuracy of detail. To find out a particular style of camera used in 1910s, for example, I would surf the net night after night to find a detail that would yield just a few sentences in my book. For information about pistols popular at the turn of century, I would engage my friends with military background in endless discussions until they absolutely dreaded my phone calls. I finally came to the realization that I was a hopeless perfectionist, something my friends had told me long before.
It was a cold December afternoon in 2008, a week before Christmas, when I stood up from my computer desk, stretching out my fatigued body with a sigh of relief; I finally had completed the draft of a novel entitled Gold Mountain Blues. Snow started falling. With Christmas music permeating the air, and juicy white snowflakes kissing my windowpanes with a gentle laziness, I felt the kind of peace that I had not known for a long while. I knew that I had accomplished a mission; I had given voice to a group of people buried in the dark abyss of history for more than a century, silent and forgotten.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank professor David Lai of University of Victoria, a member of Order of Canada, for his outstanding achievements in investigative work on the history of Chinatowns, who generously let me share his research on early Chinese immigrants in Canada; Dr. James Kwan, whose fascinating childhood tales in Kaiping village have given my inquisitive mind great pleasure—I hope I did not bore him to death with my endless questions; professor Xueqing Xu at York University and Dr. Helen Wu at University of Toronto for letting me share their access to university libraries, which helped to build the framework of my research; professor Lieyao Wang at Jinan University and his lovely graduate students for taking me to tour the villages in Kaiping and arranging for my accommodation there; my writer friend Shao Jun for accompanying me, like a true gentleman, on the tour; professors Guoxiong Zhang and Selia Tan of Wuyi University for sharing with me their in-depth knowledge of the contents of the Museum of Overseas Chinese; my dear friend Yan Zhang and her well-known newspaper The Global Chinese Press as well as the Chinese Canadian Writers’ Association for facilitating my research in Vancouver and Victoria; professor Henry Yu of University of British Columbia for sharing his knowledge in native Indian subjects; Mr. Ian Zeng and Mrs. Jinghua Huang for proofreading my first draft; Ms. Lily Liu, a well-published author herself, for sharing with me stories of her coolie ancestors; and many other friends who kindly offered me photos and information on related subjects. Last but definitely not least, I’d like to thank my family for constant emotional support without which I could not have endured the difficult and sometimes despairing journey of writing such an expansive book.
God bless you all!
P.S. Two years after the publication of Gold Mountain Blues in Chinese, I am very pleased to see the launch of its English edition in both Canada and Great Britain. I’d like to express my gratitude to my agent, Mr. Gray Tan, and the people he works with for placing their faith in me as an artist; to my translator, Ms. Nicky Harman, for her tireless explorations of the exciting but sometimes treacherous space between the two great