Photo: Damahevi | Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
Two dozen Chinese elders, mostly women, gathered around tables at Vancouver's Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, are learning how to deal with their cellphones, the lifeline that keeps them connected to family and each other. This is the launch of Xiao , an outreach program providing Chinatown seniors with culturally appropriate fresh produce and educational and social activities. Xiao , or filial piety, the offering of love, respect and support to one's parents or elders, is a key tenet in Chinese culture, and it's something organizers and volunteers hope this program will provide for some 3,000 'invisible' low-income seniors. The irony that exclusion, of a new kind, is something these elders face every day is not lost on anyone here. Chinatown has a history built on exclusion, says Terry Yung.At first we had to live here. There was the head tax, then the Chinese exclusion act, the removal of the right to vote.
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