Yut Di: One Earth

by E.H.K. Ho

Overview

During a trans-Pacific voyage in 1880, a friendship develops between a Chinese merchant, Dai Woo Cheung, and a Rabbi, Nathan Belihis, whose daughter, Louisa befriends Cheung’s son, Wing.Louisa has grown up in China where her father has served as a Rabbi in a Jewish community in China.

Their destination is Victoria on Vancouver Island, where Cheung owns a store and where Nathan has been appointed the new Rabbi for the local synagogue. Below the passenger deck in steerage is the first cargo of Chinese laborers, hired to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Discriminated by the other children on board, Wing & Louisa are terrorized by their peers. Louisa attracts the attention of a crew member who assaults her, then throws her overboard. After Wing saves her life, Louisa becomes infatuated with him.

An anti-Chinese mob protesting the arrival of Chinese railway laborers, greets the ship upon arrival. Cheung joins the CPR to search for Wing, who has been kidnapped. His search is delayed as he heads to San Francisco with a friend, to fulfill a secret mission. He meets up with his old comrade, Yuen, who accompanied him & his father during the early days of 1849 California Gold Rush.They reminisce about their earlier experiences. They also meet several new friends who assist them with their mission & who reveal their individual stories about gold mining, the treatment of the First Nations people in the US, and their work helping to build the first US transcontinental railway.

Once the mission has ended, the group return to San Francisco & become entangled in a Tong War. Afterwards, Cheung returns to Canada to rescue his son.

Will Louisa & Wing be reunited? Will their youthful relationship endure? Or will Louisa & Wing bow to social convention & parental pressure?

Product Details

BN ID:	2940153779751
Publisher:	E.H.K. Ho
Publication date:	10/12/2016
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

Editorial Reviews

Local author explores Chinese history in Yut Di: One Earth

March 1, 2017 by Adam Marsh, Camosun College's Nexus

As a white, Victoria-born, west-coast-bred-and-fed male, I’ve remained pretty ignorant of Chinese culture—and, especially, Chinese history—most of my life. Yut Di: One Earth by local author E.H.K. Ho changed that.

Ho begins with the history of why people wanted to get out of China; reading the introduction felt like a high-school history lesson that would be quite conducive to a nice catnap. That all changed once Ho dove into the historical fiction.

The book delves into how and why Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s were mistreated. The history is fascinating when combined with the fictional aspect of the book, and it’s conveyed in a creative, unique voice that—although much of the dialogue reads awkwardly in English as a result of being translated—will make you rethink your own values and customs.

There was a bit of a learning curve to reading this book because it starts at the back and ends at the front, which is in keeping with traditional Chinese literature.

Ho honours his roots while staying true to Victoria in Yut Di. He tells a story driven by human emotion, which is intertwined with the history. Any predispositions I had about this book being another dry historical endeavour had vanished by about the tenth page. I couldn’t put it down.

Anyone interested in the history of North America or in Chinese culture and history would enjoy this book, and even lovers of a good fictional read would as well; the events of the story are based on past events, such as the opium crisis in China and the Gold Rush in California, but the characters are fictional. It appeals to a wide audience while dealing with a narrow topic, and the ability to manipulate someone’s interests by bringing creativity and the human heart into historical events is one of the marks of a great storyteller.

This book tells a story that will help the reader appreciate Canada’s open immigration policies as well as feel hopeful about the country’s future.

From the Publisher