I kind of like this "Fridays off" thing. I woke up early today, and was productive in watching tv, taking a nap, and preparing for our camping trip.

So here I am trying to clean out some of the bookmarks clogging up my Favourites, and I click to see what's new in the wonderful world of Titus. I met these three guys, Pak, Matt, and Paul (Borgee) way back the first time I went to UK. It was fun. I froze Pak's shorts (for shooting me in the eye with a supersoaker), among other mayhem. When I went back the second time, I hung out with them (and all the other lovely Geordies, of course) and they had just made a second "album." Actually, the first "album" that I have of theirs...well, I'm not even sure it can be called that, since it was sort of a homemade pre-release (thanks, Phill!). Anyway, the second one featured lovely pictures of them from the beach. They were lovely because Andrew inadvertantly made streaks follow the boys, and it looked cool. I should've taken this as a hint of Andrew's photography skills before I let him have my camera at the Wallsend museum. I now have two lovely pictures of a stone wall with my feet peeking out from the top to remind me of that.
Anyway, Titus has changed their site to a myspace sorta thing, and I decide to click on the video to see one of their concerts. Since they got big, I've been sort of a closet fan. I cheer them from afar, but the loud rock is not my kind of music. I was amused to see their video...they certainly didn't look like that when I met them, and it's a little funny to see them like that now. In any case, they certainly seem to have gained quite the fan base (sounds like a lot of girls, hmmm), and they look like they're doing well. I miss them, but I refuse to sound like a groupie in saying so!

In other news, I'm going camping this weekend! Yay! John and I are going with my good friend Monica and her bf Shawn. A couple of months ago, we had a "James and Zet are Lee-ving" bbq (more like an excuse to have a bbq). James moved to Vancouver a few weeks ago, and I'm not leaving for another month. Shawn and John (they rhyme!) were talking while bbqing, and they talked about going camping. They came inside and announced to me and Monica that the 4 of us are going camping and that it's up to me and Monica to plan it. Well then. Since I don't work days, I quickly looked up some provincial parks and reserved a site. We're going to Bon Echo Provincial Park and our site is canoe-accessible only! It's all good, we figured Algonquin was too hard core and since it's Canada Day weekend, it'd be all booked up. So this one is a nice 30-min canoe with no portage. The trashtalk has already begun. We've told Shawn and Monica that they're going to be canoing circles around us....literally, because Monica is really into dragonboating and is good at paddling, but she'll overpower Shawn! Meanwhile, John can actually steer, so we'll leave them in our wake! :) I'm excited to go!

Goodness, I sure don't know much. I found out this weekend that my grandfather came to Canada much earlier than I had thought. All this time, I thought he came in the 1960s or something. I only found out because of all the hubbub surrounding Canada's decision to finally issue a formal apology and redress the infamous "head tax." Turns out none of us are able to cash in on it anyway - the compensation is only for survivors and widows. Even then, if it were offered to children, we don't talk to my dad as it is, but whatever. It's nice that the government has officially apologized for its racist policies, even if the policies are 50 - 100 years old.

But, like I said...I had no idea. Mom pulled out a copy of grandpa's certificate. He landed in Victoria in 1918. NINETEEN-EIGHTEEN! Not quite 1960s, that's for sure! In fact, that's at the end of WWI and the peak of the head tax. He would've had to pay $500 in 1918 dollars. Equivalent to 2 years wages, likely working jobs that the European settlers didn't want to do (like laundromat or something). But...upon closer inspection of the certificate... it looks just like any other certificate you see posted on the internet, but the words are different! There's no fill-in-the-blank line where someone wrote in how much he paid in head tax. Most have a line that says "Five Hundred Dollars." Grandpa's says... "is exempt from head tax following the provisions of the Chinese Immigration Act." Grandpa didn't pay head tax!

That of course prompted me to poke around the internet. It seems that either 1) Grandpa somehow snuck into Hong Kong and came to Canada from there, in which case, HK was a British Colony at the time and Canada wouldn't have been able to consider him "Chinese." or 2) Certain professions were exempt from head tax, such as merchants, diplomats, clergy, and men of science. My grandfather was a pharmacist (or something like that...he definitely knew his Chinese herbs!). We're not entirely sure, but those are the 2 most likely reasons he was exempt from head tax. *side note: I guess this is another reason we wouldn't be compensated - Grandpa didn't even pay in the first place!*

This is all fascinating to me. History is more interesting when you have a personal stake in it. It's one of the reasons why, in a way, I am happy that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. I wouldn't be here if they hadn't (other side of the family).

Someone in my family isn't very good at the game of telephone though. My mom distinctly remembers Grandpa telling her that he had paid head tax. Apparently before he died, he said that if there was ever compensation for head tax, to use the money for my schooling. I could say that I was his favourite...or I could say that my sibs were almost at university-age when he died anyway, and he didn't see any compensation coming anytime soon. I prefer to think that I was his favourite.

It's been about 90 years now. I found out that the Vancouver Public Library has head tax records on microfilm. Maybe I should go take a look next time I'm out there.