Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
economist and writer.
Early life and schooling
A third-generation Chinese Canadian, Chong was born in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, British Columbia on 9 June 1953,Diana Lary, "Denise Chong", ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. and was raised in Prince George. She studied economics at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
(UBC) earning her bachelor's degree in 1975. She received an MA from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
in 1978.
Career as an economist
Chong's career as an economist began when she moved to
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
to work in the Department of Finance, where she was employed until 1980. She then worked for one year as a special advisor in the Prime Minister's Office, dealing with issues pertaining to British Columbia. In 1981 she became a senior economic advisor and worked closely with the late
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and ...
until the end of his term in 1984. It has been noted that her presence, as a Chinese female, was remarkable in the white male dominated world of government finance and that "she was a trailblazer for the more inclusive public service that was to come." Denise Chong's career in the
Canadian government
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-C ...
is made even more significant with her realization, through her familial and historical research, that her "grandparents lived in Canada at a time when they could not participate in White society. They were excluded from it: they could not take out citizenship, they couldn't own land, they couldn't vote."
With the end of Trudeau's term in 1984, Denise Chong left her role as a public servant in order to pursue a career as a professional writer.
Writing career
Though her professional writing career did not begin until much later, Denise Chong was a journalist for the ''
Ubyssey
''The Ubyssey'' is the University of British Columbia's official, independent student-run paper and is published bi-weekly on Tuesday. Founded on October 18, 1918,
''The Ubyssey'' is an independent publication funded by a $7.09 annual fee, from ...
'', a student newspaper at UBC, while she was an undergraduate student there.
Denise Chong has published four literary non-fiction books and edited one compilation of short stories. Because of the importance of the Canadian historical research in Chong's first book, a memoir of her family, ''
The Concubine's Children
''The Concubine's Children: Portrait of a Family Divided'' is a non-fiction book written by Chinese-Canadian writer Denise Chong, first published in January 1995 by Penguin Books. In the book, the author traces her family's history, giving a narr ...
'', she has become "renowned as a writer and commentator on Canadian history and on the family." This book, one of the first non-fiction narrative accounts of the Chinese in Canada, was a ''Globe and Mail'' best seller for ninety-three weeks. A speech that she gave for Citizenship Week in 1995 entitled "Being Canadian" has been widely anthologized, including in the books ''Who Speaks for Canada: Words that Shape a Country'' by D. Morton and M. Weinfeld (1998), and ''Great Canadian Speeches'' by D. Gruending (2004).
Chong's emphasis on the voices of women, as well as her particular brand of nationalism (which is more than a little critical), are both reflected in her edited compilation ''The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women''. That many of the authors published in this anthology are also women of transnational identities is a reflection of Denise Chong's concern for the multicultural quality of being Canadian. In Chong's own words, "Canadian citizenship recognizes differences. It praises diversity. It is what we as Canadians ''choose'' to have in common with each other How we tell our stories is the work of citizenship". In her introduction to the anthology, Chong highlights what attracted her to the stories, seeming to also articulate one of the strong characteristics of her own writing: "The plot that interested me was life lived in the chaos and uncertainty of everyday happenings and relationships." All of Chong's books evoke such "everyday happenings and relationships" amidst the extraordinary circumstances of war, communism, immigration, and racism.
Denise Chong's second book, ''The Girl in the Picture'', about iconic Vietnamese napalm victim
Kim Phuc
Phan Thị Kim Phúc (; born April 6, 1963), referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the Napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning phot ...
Random House Canada
Random House of Canada was the Canadian distributor for Random House, Inc. from 1944 until 2013. On July 1, 2013, it amalgamated with Penguin Canada to become Penguin Random House Canada.
Company history
Random House of Canada was established i ...
, was Chong's first book in a decade. ''Egg on Mao'' tells the story of Lu Decheng, a bus mechanic, who, with two friends, challenged his family's communist allegiance by defacing a portrait of chairman
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
during the 1989 protests in
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen (" ...
. In an interview about this story exploring
human rights in China
Human rights in mainland China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments and h ...
, Chong said, "It was a very Chinese act. In the West, we would view something like this as a quixotic and think how naive these men were. But in China, it's your only gesture. Of course they were naive. But you have to balance the futility of the gesture against the weight of repression… people are willing to make a futile gesture for the nobility of having acted."
Her 2013 non-fiction book, '' Lives of the Family: Stories of Fate and Circumstance'', relates stories about the experiences of Chinese-Canadian families who settled in Canada's National Capital Region. This work earned her praise in ''Toronto Star'' and ''Vancouver Sun'' book reviews.
Publications
* ''
The Concubine's Children
''The Concubine's Children: Portrait of a Family Divided'' is a non-fiction book written by Chinese-Canadian writer Denise Chong, first published in January 1995 by Penguin Books. In the book, the author traces her family's history, giving a narr ...
'' was published in 1994 by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Desmond Morton and Morton Weinfeld (1998), and ''Great Canadian Speeches'' by D. Gruending.
* ''The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women'' was published in 1997 by Penguin Books in Toronto.
* '' The Girl in the Picture: The Kim Phuc Story'' was published in 1999 by
Viking Press
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...
In addition to continuing her career as a writer, Chong serves on the boards, task forces, and committees of several organizations including the Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service, the National Advisory Board on Culture Online, and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. In 2013, she was appointed to the
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.
To coincide with the ...
, the country's highest civilian award.
Denise Chong lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, CTV reporter Roger Smith, and her two children, Jade and Kai. She received honorary doctorates from York University in October 2007, Bishop's University, and the University of Northern British Columbia.