Alix McNaught
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 02, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - Ting-xing Ye never wrote a story in her life until writing her first book in 1997.

Growing up during China's Cultural Revolution, Ye learned early on that what you write can come back to haunt you.

"Even as a kid I knew - you learn from watching adults - you never tell people how you truly feel. And worst of all, you never put anything down in writing, because I saw my friend's father, (who) was a university professor, police came to arrest him and he was behind bars for many years because of the book he had written," she said.

Ye is now an award-winning author of books for children, young adults and adults, including two memoirs.

"I'm on the Canada Concert Tour and visiting public libraries and talking to the kids about my books, writing and my life in China," said Ye.

She was in the NWT for the first time last week, touring schools and libraries in Fort Smith, Fort Simpson, Hay River and Yellowknife.

Though she's lived in Canada for 20 years, Ye, who grew up in Shanghai with its 18 million people, was struck by the smaller populations in the North.

While in Fort Smith she marvelled at the librarian waving at passing cars, thinking it was just a habit until she realized the woman actually knew all the people.

In spite of her success, it was quite some time before Ye was comfortable expressing her political opinion or writing a letter to the editor.

Her husband, Canadian author William Bell, now jokes she expresses her opinion too much, shouting back at the television and phoning in to radio stations.

Ye lives north of Toronto, in Orillia, Ont.

"I should stop telling you I live in the North. This is the North," she said.

Ye said she has truly felt Northern hospitality and was thankful for all the work the librarians did in the communities she visited.

Ye said she relates to the high school students she met in the North.

"They are about my age when I was caught up in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. Forty years ago I was 16. Because my parents were dead, all my siblings - we were living on welfare. The government just cut off the welfare, said just go and support yourself. I was sent to the prison farms and I lived there, worked there for six years."

Ye is going back to China this fall, as it will be 40 years since she was sent to a prison farm.

She came to Canada in 1987 as a visiting scholar at York University.

"That's a fancy title for somebody, because they knew I couldn't pay the tuition," she said.

She studied there for over a year, then took odd jobs in Toronto as a babysitter and filing clerk.

After moving to Orillia with Bell and their three children, Ye was unable to find a job.

It was at this point she wrote her first story, the picture book Three Monks, No Water, based on an expression her mother used when she and her siblings didn't want to do any work.

Ye said she initially wanted to write to fill her day, but also to preserve these stories and memories, especially because China's one child policy has created generations without siblings, aunts or uncles.

Since then, she has written seven more books.

Her latest, a novel called Mountain Girl, River Girl, is set in China.