When Gordon Quan was growing up in Victoria in the 1930s, he wasn’t allowed in the swimming pool and had to sit in a separate part of the movie theatre.
Chinese Canadians couldn’t vote and were barred from certain professions.
Many even had to give up their Chinese names in favour of English ones that were deemed easier to pronounce. In Quan’s case, a teacher suggested that “Gordon” — from the comic strip Flash Gordon — was better than his real name, Juy Kong.
But when Quan turned 18 and was allowed to join the Canadian Army, he never hesitated.
“I said I will go and I will fight … I volunteered,” said Quan — now just two months shy of his 99th birthday — as he handed out poppies at Mayfair shopping centre on Friday for his Royal Canadian Legion Branch, Britannia No. 7.
Quan said it was his “duty” as a Canadian to go, even though he and thousands of others of similar heritage faced racism and were often segregated in daily life. “It was just the way it was,” said Quan, who was born in Cumberland in 1926.
In 1944, Quan was all in, volunteering to join a British-led secret commando unit — Force 136 — to fight the Japanese in the jungles of Burma.
The Burmese campaign, often called the Forgotten War compared with the European and Pacific theatres — was a brutal one fraught with arduous marches and sabotage and reconnaissance missions amid hot, humid conditions and the threat of disease.
After his basic training in Maple Creek, Sask., with about 600 other Chinese Canadians, they were given a choice — fight the Germans in Europe or the Japanese in Southeast Asia.
It wasn’t a difficult decision.
In his early teens in Victoria, Quan had raised money in Chinatown for the forces fighting the Japanese, who had invaded China in 1937. He also had a direct, personal connection to his parents’ homeland. After Quan’s father died when he was five, his mother took her son to her family’s village in China, but they returned to Victoria when he was nine.
After training, Quan was shipped to England, and transferred to the British Army Special Operations Executive Force 136, which worked with resistance groups in Japanese-occupied countries such as Burma, supplying them and helping to conduct sabotage operations.
They were flown to a camp near Poona, India, where Quan trained as the demolition expert in a 15-man commando team.
His squad included another Victorian, Harry Chow.
Quan endured 50-kilometre marches where officers used live machine-gun fire to teach the soldiers to keep their heads down.
He learned how to jump behind enemy lines by parachute, how to use a knife and gun, what plants to eat in the jungle, and how to use detonators and plastic explosives to blow up bridges, railways and ammunition dumps.
For two months in the jungle near the Malaysia-Burma border, Quan carried a .45- or .38-calibre handgun, and, in case of capture, a cyanide pill.
But Quan never made it into combat. In August 1945, as his team was preparing to fight, the squad was told the war was over after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan.
“If it wasn’t for that, I would not be standing here today,” said Quan.
He was awarded the Canadian Forces’ Decoration with two bars, the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, the Burma Star medal and the Order of Military Merit — all of which Quon wears proudly.
When Quan finally got a chance to vote, it was in the 1949 federal election and he’s cast ballots in nearly every election since.
He settled in Victoria after the war, washing dishes at the Victoria Cafe and The Mandarin restaurant and working in construction jobs. He trained as an auto mechanic, raising a family of five, and eventually became the mechanical foreman at the City of Victoria.
Quan wanted to volunteer for the Korean conflict, but wasn’t considered, since he was raising a young family at the time.
He joined the army reserve, serving 35 years before retiring as regimental sergeant major of 11 Company in 39 Service Battalion.
Quan said the barriers for Chinese Canadians started to ease after he returned home from the war.
His boyhood friend Andrew Wong, who served during the war with the U.S. merchant marine and then with its Canadian counterpart, successfully challenged the rule barring Chinese from Crystal Pool.
Quan said when the new facility was built on Quadra Street, Wong was one of the first lifeguards.
Quan remains active at 98. He’s the proud owner of an electric three-wheeled bike and takes regular trips with his daughter and son-in-law on the airport trails in North Saanich. Most recently, he was able to climb aboard the Martin Mars water bomber on display at the B.C. Aviation Museum.
He speaks regularly to veterans’ groups and visits other old soldiers at Broadmead Care’s Veterans Memorial Lodge. He takes time to get to know everyone at his own residence at Ross Place, next to the site of North Ward School, where he attended classes decades ago.
Quan has been dispersing poppies leading up to Remembrance Day for decades. “We can’t forget the knowledge of the Second World War,” he said. “That’s why I come down today and I always do this. People can’t forget about the sacrifice veterans make.”
Quan’s daughter, Annette Quan, said her father has retained his enthusiasm through his long life.
“He never had a grudge [about discrimination],” she said. “He never seemed to carry that or dwell on it. He just takes it as human kindness [on his part].”
On a recent visit to the Victoria Chinatown Museum, her father talked with younger children about the importance of the sacrifices made by veterans, Annette said.
As for Quan, he credits his longevity to “discipline, diet and exercise.”
“I enjoyed the armed forces and if I was young again I would join up again,” said Quan, adding that his experience in the army gave him useful lessons for life.
Quan said he feels fortunate to retain his keen memory — and undeniable wit — as he approaches the century mark.
“I try to help people if possible, understand people and to be respectful of people … if I continue to do that, then that’s good.”
— with files from Jack Knox
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