Kit Ping Lee

Mrs. Kit Ping Mary Lee was born on Aug 11, 1917, 96 years ago. She was born in a family in China, the province of Kwan Tung and the small town of Hoi Ping. Her father was a Doctor who practised herbal medicine and has helped a lot of people, especially the under-privileged. She received the equivalent of a High School education and was considered well-educated, as in the older days women were usually only restricted to stay at home. Her freedom thinking and “modern” intellectual led her to come to meet her future husband, Alexander Chi Keung Lee, at some social gathering; she eventually got married to him. They did not have a lot of blessing from both families, however the Second World War broke out and on the same day that Japan had declared war on China on July 7, 1937 the Bridge of Lu Kao incident, Mary Ng and Alexander Lee got married officially. Immediately, Alexander Lee was drafted as the Captain of the North West Transportation army unit due to the close relationship of the Lee’s family with a General based in Kwan Chou. Mrs. Lee was allowed to travel back and forth with the army unit with her husband between Burma (now known as Miramar) and Chung King. During this period, Mrs. Lee had also learned how to use a side arm and carried one too. During this travel, the Lee couple had no time to produce any off spring at all until the war was over and finally settled down in Hong Kong. Joseph Lee was born in Hong Kong on 1956 as the only child in the family.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee had followed their son Joseph Lee to Canada in 1974 he had come to Canada in 1973 to further his studies. Since then they had retired and spent their quiet lives in Canada to appreciate this beautiful and peaceful country and especially the multi-cultural city of Vancouver.

When I was younger, we all lived in a big house and we had 7 people living in the same house. My mom was able to look after every detail and ensure that food is never short; house is cleaned and was not an easy task. When I was ready to go to elementary school, she did her best to put me in the best school in Hong Kong. I was told later that she had lined up overnight with my dad just to trying to get an application form. Mom has a very kind heart as I knew that she was travelling with my dad during the war and found a little girl lying on the road with nobody attending to her. She took her in her care and eventually adopted her as her little sister. When I grew older, I was not able to get into the Hong Kong University. She encouraged me to look abroad and promised to support me financially and eventually ended up in Victoria, Canada. One year after I came to Canada, my mom missed me so much and was able to convince my dad to uproot everything in Hong Kong and moved to Canada. This migration was not easy as in my parents’ age at that time were already around 50 and emigrating to a brand country with different language and uncertainty took a lot of courage. When my parents first came to Canada, they had a pretty tough life in the first few years with the language barrier and the unexpected higher cost of living in Vancouver. My dad because of his age was not able to find any job and I was still in school. Mom decided that she will find a job and supported the family. As she had never worked in a single day in her live, she insisted that I would finish my degree and she went and found a labor intensive job in a local fishery and ended up working for a few years until my parents were qualified for pension. As my parents grew older, my dad was ill in his final couple of years. Even with arthritis bothering her, she still rode the bus faithfully to the senior care home where my dad was and brought him soup and special herbal nutritional food. My mom finally came to eventually live out her life in Little Mountain Place where she was known to bring smiles and joy to the many tenants and workers that resided in the facility.