Cultural contexts during a pandemic: a qualitative description of cultural factors that shape protective behaviours in the Chinese-Canadian community

Background During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been significant variations in the level of adoption of public health recommendations across international jurisdictions and between cultural groups. Such variations have contributed to the dissimilar levels of risks associated with this world-changing viral infection and have highlighted the potential role of culture in assigning meaning and importance to personal protective behaviours. The purpose of this study is to describe the cultural factors during the COVID-19 pandemic that shaped protective health behaviours in the Chinese-Canadian community, one of the largest Chinese diasporas outside of Asia. Methods A qualitative descriptive design was employed. Content analysis was used to analyze the data from semi-structured virtual interviews conducted with 83 adult Chinese-Canadian participants residing in a metropolitan area in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Findings The cultural factors of collectivism, information seeking behaviour, symbolism of masks, and previous experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) emerged as themes driving the early adoption of personal protective behaviours within the Chinese-Canadian community during the first wave of COVID-19. These protective behaviours that emerged prior to the first nation-wide lockdown in Canada included physical distancing, mask use, and self-quarantine beyond what was required at the time. Conclusion These findings have implications for the development of future public health interventions and campaigns targeting personal protective behaviours in this population and other ethnic minority populations with similar characteristics.

Reading (Re)conciliation in White Settler and Chinese Canadian Narratives: From Liberal towards Transformative Approaches

This article explores how four settler narratives situate themselves differently within the reconciliation discourse in response to the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. In my reading of Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Spawning Grounds (2016) and Jennifer Manuel’s The Heaviness of Things That Float (2016) alongside Doretta Lau’s “How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?” (2014) and Amy Fung’s Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being (2019), I show how these narratives express different degrees of critical reflection on the settler colonial state and differ in their acknowledgement of Indigenous resurgence. I adopt David B. MacDonald’s distinction between “liberal reconciliation,” which is based on a “shared vison of a harmonious future,” and “transformative reconciliation,” which “is about fundamentally problematizing the settler state as a colonial creation, a vector of cultural genocide, and one that continues inexorably to suppress Indigenous collective aspirations for self-determination and sovereignty” as a critical framework.

Protocol for the Development and Rapid-Response Deployment of Pandemic Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment Response (PACER) Training (Preprint)

BACKGROUND During a global pandemic, it is critical to rapidly deploy a psychological intervention to support the mental health and resilience of highly affected individuals and communities. OBJECTIVE This is the impetus behind the development and implementation of the Pandemic Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment Response (PACER) Training, an online blended-skills building intervention to increase the resilience and wellbeing of participants while promoting their individual and collective empowerment and capacity-building. METHODS Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and social justice-based Group Empowerment Psychoeducation (GEP), we developed the Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment (ACE) model to enhance psychological resilience and collective empowerment. PACER program consists of six online interactive self-guided modules complemented by six weekly 90 minutes facilitator-led video-conference group sessions. RESULTS As of August 2021, a total of 325 participants have enrolled in the PACER program. Participants include frontline healthcare providers and Chinese Canadian community members. CONCLUSIONS The PACER program is an innovative intervention program with the potential for increasing psychological resilience and collective empowerment while reducing mental distress during the pandemic.

Elsewhere Home: Hospitality, Affect, and Language in Ying Chen’s Lettres Chinoises and Kim Thúy’s Vi

Though Canada’s Multiculturalism Act (1971) enables migrants to enter the country and keep their values and cultures, in practice this can be a difficult process. This essay focuses on two narratives written by a Chinese Canadian immigrant, Ying Chen’s Lettres chinoises (1993), and a Vietnamese Québécois refugee, Kim Thúy’s Vi (2016), to highlight the ways in which immigrating into a new country can be a highly affective experience. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s notion of hospitality, this essay examines the ways in which each writer foregrounds the issues faced by migrants and refugees as they negotiate life in a new society. The emotional and physical experience of being a stranger joining a host society are concomitant and equally problematic. Sara Ahmed’s work is equally significant as it focuses on strangers’ embodied experiences of migration in a host society. Ultimately, this essay examines migration as a transformative experience for protagonists as they come to terms with a new life in Québec. La loi du Multiculturalisme instaurée au Canada en 1971 permet aux migrants de maintenir leurs valeurs et leur mode de vie d’avant le processus migratoire. Or, en pratique, ceci n’est pas toujours vécu sans heurts. Dans la présente étude, nous aborderons deux récits migratoires: le roman Les lettres chinoises (1993) de la Sino-Canadienne, Ying Chen, et Vi (2016) de la Québécoise d’origine vietnamienne, Kim Thúy, afin de mettre en relief la notion de l’immigration comme une expérience affective. En puisant dans les théories de Jacques Derrida portant sur l’hospitalité, nous discuterons la manière dont chacune de ces écrivaines traite des problèmes auxquels font face leurs protagonistes immigrants dans une nouvelle société. De plus, les aspects physiques et émotionnels qu’engendrent l’aliénation demeurent cruciaux et ainsi, nous nous tournerons vers les théories de Sara Ahmed afin de mettre en évidence les perspectives affectives et corporelles de l’immigration lorsque immigrés et réfugiés tentent de s’adapter à leur nouvelle vie au Québec.

Interpretation of the Heroine’s Emotional Reconstruction in The Ghost Train

Paul Yee’s imaginary myth The Ghost Train mainly relates the experience of the heroin Choon-yi who is born with the drawing talent that helps those deceased Chinese labors return to China with the guidance of her father in her dream. On the road, she has confronted with many Chinese-Canadian cultural conflicts. Thus, the article will analyze the process of her emotional reconstruction from the aspects of her inner rebellion against the Canadian hegmonism, adaption and integration of the dual cultures, revealing how she accomplished a journey of salvation for nationalities and a pilgrim of seeking herself-growth.

The role of ethnic identity in children’s selective trust in others

The present research examined the roles of informant ethnicity and early ethnic identity development in guiding children’s selective trust across scenarios, comparing White and Chinese Canadian children with children adopted from China by White parents. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated children’s selective learning from two contrasting sources that differed in race (White versus Chinese) and spoken accent (native versus foreign accent). Experiment 1 (White experimenter) indicated that the White children preferred to learn from White informants when race was the only cue to ethnic group status; no preference was observed when race was pitted against accent. The Chinese and adopted children showed no learning preference. Children’s social preference for same-race peers was associated with a preference to learn from same-race informants. Experiment 2 (Chinese experimenter) had similar findings, except that there was no relationship between children’s racial preference and selective learning. Experiment 3 explored children’s selective credulity toward misinformation from a single source. The Chinese children were credulous toward both Chinese and White (native- or foreign-accented) informants but the White and adopted children were not credulous or skeptical, regardless of the informant’s race and accent. The present findings contribute to our understanding of how ethnic intergroup attitudes develop in children of different ethnic and social-status backgrounds, including minority-status children that reside with majority-status parents, and provide practical implications for real-world issues related to children’s eyewitness testimony in forensic contexts.

The role of ethnic identity in children’s selective trust in others

The present research examined the roles of informant ethnicity and early ethnic identity development in guiding children’s selective trust across scenarios, comparing White and Chinese Canadian children with children adopted from China by White parents. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated children’s selective learning from two contrasting sources that differed in race (White versus Chinese) and spoken accent (native versus foreign accent). Experiment 1 (White experimenter) indicated that the White children preferred to learn from White informants when race was the only cue to ethnic group status; no preference was observed when race was pitted against accent. The Chinese and adopted children showed no learning preference. Children’s social preference for same-race peers was associated with a preference to learn from same-race informants. Experiment 2 (Chinese experimenter) had similar findings, except that there was no relationship between children’s racial preference and selective learning. Experiment 3 explored children’s selective credulity toward misinformation from a single source. The Chinese children were credulous toward both Chinese and White (native- or foreign-accented) informants but the White and adopted children were not credulous or skeptical, regardless of the informant’s race and accent. The present findings contribute to our understanding of how ethnic intergroup attitudes develop in children of different ethnic and social-status backgrounds, including minority-status children that reside with majority-status parents, and provide practical implications for real-world issues related to children’s eyewitness testimony in forensic contexts.

When Chen Meets Chan

A poem featuring an imaginary dialog between Chan, a well-known Chinese-Canadian athlete and Chen, a Chinese academic living in Canada. The piece speaks from these two different cultural perspectives.

Interpretation of the Emotional World of Chinese Children Images in Jade Peony

The first novel Jade Peony by Chinese-Canadian writer Wayson Choy mainly relates the experience about a family of three generations lived in Canada through those three Chinese children’s perspectives. Under the influence of dual culture, the growth of these Chinese Canadian children is accompanied by confusion and pain. This article will explore the emotional world behind these children’s images and reveal how they choose to survive and merge in the conflicts of different cultures.