Mah Part 2

The family of Mah Bon Quen
- Part Two

LAST ISSUE: After an adventurous .20 years in the gold fields and railways. 39-year-old Mah Bon Quen arrived in Prince Rupert in 1910. He established the King Tal Import and export store on 7th Avenue West, and his son Earl Mah was the first Chinese child born In Prince Rupert.

When the First World War broke Out it became impossible for Mali Bon Quen to obtain Chinese goods to sell at his King Tai store. He closed it and took whatever jobs he could find to get by, and in 1921 he used his last thousand dollars to found Sunrise Grocery at the corner of 6th Avenue and Fulton Street. Sunrise Grocery, which was to be in operation for 60 years, was one of the most famous businesses in early Prince Rupert.
“My brother Gee told me that they started out with a crate of oranges.” says son Albert Mah. “Then there were profits, and they expanded until they were the largest grocery store in the whole town.” Another version of the story says that it was a crate of peanuts. Either way. running six days a week and offering door-to-door delivery with an
old, wooden-wheeled panel van. Sunrise Grocery at one time served a quarter of Prince Rupert. In addition, groceries were shipped to several communities in northwestern B.C.. often in exchange for bartered goods. ‘The people in the villages all up the line had to have a market,” Cedric Mah remembers. “They were trying to sell produce. As kids we were offloading boxcar-loads of potatoes, turnips. carrots. parsnips, and beets. My father was trying to use things from up and down the valley. Then what did the people of the
Charlottes have to barter? The only thing there that they really produced was potatoes. but it was cheaper to get them by the trainload from Remo. Kitwanga. and all those places. But the seafood. abalone, shrimp, crabs and all that, that was something he could trade. Nobody had any money. but my dad came from very poor circumstances, and he had pity on all of these people.

“I remember we used to be busy six days a week, everybody working, doing something. Even on Christmas and Boxing Day we would be busy. At Christmas my father would see people who were unemployed, more and more as the years went by. He’d rent a couple of Chinese restaurants. Lem and Sam Chin would cook turkeys, and all of the unemployed and destitute would have a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.” In addition to this free. annual feast. Mah eased the burden of the Great Depression, offering credit to his customers - credit that was often unpaid and sometimes forgiven. Cedric Mah remembers that, as the Depression worsened, the Salvation Army would tell the hungry: “You go up and see that old man at the corner of Sixth and Fulton. You’ll get something to eat.’
Despite his legendary generosity. Mah Bon Quens wealth, in every sense of the word as it was understood by the Chinese of imperial times, had mushroomed from his humble beginnings in Fel Gno. He had made three return visits to China, including one in 1925. He had built up the biggest business in Prince Rupert. He had eleven children - by his first wife. Gee (Edward), Earl. Lily and Alex, and by his second wife, Daisy, Violet. Albert, Cedric, Lucy, Phyllis and Bernice. He had prospered from his persistent hard work during his early years in Canada. and he constantly sought to expand on this “My father was a real close cohort to the cops and politicians in the city.” Albert Mah remembers. ‘There were always some deals going on. Once in the early years he baled this guy Murphy out of jail when he was arrested for starting a strike, and I can remember Murphy bringing cakes and things around for years after that. But my father was a real wheeler-dealer.’

The family of Mah Bon Quen were also noted for their fishing on Sundays, the one day that the grocery was closed. They went as a family to a bar on the Skeena popularly known as Sunrise Bar. Today it is still often known as China Bar, in a faded memory of the days when the Mah family made it a personal retreat.

Mah Bon Quen died in 1935. and it was said that his funeral - the procession swollen with needy people he had helped - was the largest in Prince Rupert up to that time. Then his second wife, and all of her children, were sent back to Fel Gno. taking Mah’s body to be placed with his ancestors. They arrived in August. It was the worst possible time to be entering China.

The Japanese had first turned their industrialized military strength against China in 1894, and had since then made steady advances. In 1931-’32 Japan had seized Manchuria and parts of north
China. The ruling Nationalists under Chiang Kaishek were too weak to stem the Japanese advance. Then in October 1935 the Chinese Communist Party, under the Comitern. broke out of a long siege and fled south through Guangdong province and then east, and instead of resisting the Japanese advance Chiang tried to exterminate the Communists. By October 1938 all of the eastern provinces were under the control of the Japanese, and puppet governments were established in Beijing and Nanjing. It was one of the most brutal invasions and occupations of the Second World War. typified by the horrendous Rape of Nanjing in 1938. And the family of Mah Bon Quen. trapped in Fei Gno in Guangdong province, was right in the middle of it.

NEXT ISSUE: Young Alberf Mah immediately left Fei Gno and returned to Prince Rupert As a member of the famed Flying Tigers. however he later crossed the Japanese lines in a daring hid to help his family in Fei Gno.

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