CHINESE have been in Guyana for more than 150 years. Forty years ago, the governments of Guyana and China saw it fit to establish bilateral relations, the first such agreement for the Caribbean. The Chinese of Guyana have made sterling contributions to the matrix of a Guyanese society. Some of those contributions are more evident than others; likewise, some of those contributions are more documented than others.
Much has been written on the history of Chinese in Guyana, but there is little mention of Chinese in the imaginative literature in the country. There are, and could be, several reasons for this lacuna.
I’d like to look at the fact that the Chinese community has produced only a few writers of note. Three names readily come to mind — Janice [Jan Lo] Shinebourne, Meiling Jin, and Brian Chan. To the credit of the Chinese community, two of those writers have won the Guyana Prize for Literature, while the third was shortlisted for the prize.
The two writers who have won the prize are Chan and Shinebourne. Chan won in 1989 with a collection of poems, ‘Thief with a Leaf’; while Shinebourne took the prize in 1987 with her first novel, ‘Timepiece’. Jin’s first collection of stories, ‘Song of the Boatwoman’, made the shortlist in 1996.
Of the three writers, Shinebourne and Jin were the ones who focused more on Chinese culture. Jin’s collection of poems, ‘Gifts from My Grandmother’, published by Sheba, “explores her Guyanese-Chinese roots.”
In the short story ‘The Marriage Match’, Shinebourne depicts a major aspect of the Chinese culture in Guyana. ‘The Marriage Match’ is about the due process employed between the mothers of two families on one hand, and the ‘modern’ opinions that were tabled by their respective broods of children on the other hand.
One family, the Choys, was from the County of Berbice, with the boy of suitable age; and the other family, the Lis, was from Demerara, with the girl of marriageable age.
The story begins with the writing of a letter of reply from the mother of the Choy family to a letter initiating the marriage match from the Lis. (Very early, the reader is asked to take note “that it was the Chinese custom for the mother to negotiate.”) That letter, dated March 5, 1944, was dispatched to Mrs Enid Li of Light Street, Alberttown, who had so far kept the marriage match a secret from her children, all girls, who now rebelled against the custom of matchmaking.
The first letter initiating the match, addressed to Mrs Clarice Choy, was also kept a secret from the children of that family; however, the boy knew of the process, all of these incidents hinting to the conflict which is to follow. What follows was according to Chinese custom, up to a point; there was a slight twist in the end when the boy and girl took the situation in their hands.
Three weeks later, the Li family — ‘petite’ mother and four ‘beautiful young’ daughters — were on their way to Berbice on a train they boarded at Carmichael and Lamaha Streets in Georgetown. The first meeting of the two families was a revelation to each family and to the reader. In the sizing-up process, we perceived that there was a slight animosity between the Punti Chinese (the Choys) and the Hakka Chinese (the Lis); also, that there may be another issue of contention between the families, due to the fact that one was more creolised than the other, therefore less Chinese than the other.
However, despite the obstacles, perceived or otherwise, it was the children — Alexander Choy and Ruth Li — who decided the outcome: They would accept each other. So the story that started as a marriage match ended as a true love story.
As editor of The Guyana Annual magazine, I have encountered a few emerging Chinese writers; and I know this number will increase, and that all of them will add to a better understanding of the culture of the Chinese in Guyana, and obviously will bring new dimensions to the culture.

WHAT’S HAPPENING:
•    The National Library has planned a number of activities for the month of June to honour E. R. Braithwaite on his birth anniversary. Some of these activities include a book and photographic exhibition, readings from the author’s work, a preview of a Guyanese version of ‘To Sir with Love’, television programmes, and newspaper articles. For further information, please check with the National Library.
•    Also, we are inviting tributes, especially from Guyanese who knew the writer.
(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065, or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)