Everyday Religion and Identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community: Christianity, the KMT, Foodways and Related Events

Immigrating to the Canadian prairies in the late 1870s, a predominantly male Chinese population first settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, then in Brandon and cities, towns, and villages created by new branch lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the 1880s. From the earliest time of the province’s post-colonial settlement, men could join the Chinese Freemasons (Hongmen/Zhigongtang) whose 1863 headquarters was established in Barkerville, British Columbia, and later the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) in 1884 in Victoria. By 1910, a Winnipeg Freemasons “lodge ” (probably a restaurant) existed that also housed a local branch of the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League). Two years later, it became a secret KMT (Zhongguo Guomindang or Chinese Nationalist League in the West) office and one year after that a rural outpost opened in Brandon. While the men had found comfort in the fellowship provided by Freemasons and CBA membership, in the KMT they had Sun Yatsen (1866–1925) who, like them, came from a southern village and was now living away from China. This essay examines the front and back regions of everyday religiosity that emerged out of KMT involvement and relationships, reverence for Sun Yatsen, and a nominal Christian identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community