At the urging of the Chinese Consulate, Chinese business delegates have raised roughly $100,000 for the restoration of a graveyard housing the remains of Chinese pioneers in Barkerville.
The group of Metro Vancouver-based Chinese community associations will be touring the area in late May or early June.
We don’t have the exact date yet, says Cariboo Regional District (CRD) chair Al Richmond, but they will be coming through 100 Mile House.
The delegates will be arriving by bus in time for lunch, he adds.
There will be time for the visitors to see what 100 Mile House has to offer with our history, and our business opportunities, Richmond says, adding most of the delegates are avid hunters and fishers and a package is being put together to show the visitors what this area offers.
The CRD is also pursuing an opportunity to host up to 20 elite martial arts practitioners from Henan Province in China who will be delivering cultural performances this summer in some communities, including 100 Mile House, Richmond says.
This group visited Whitehorse last year and the response was overwhelming, he adds.
“The Northern Development Trust Initiative turned down our application for funding to have the group come in to the Cariboo region. It’s disappointing, but we are not giving up.”
Richmond says they have asked for help, including sending requests to Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett and International Trade and Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism Minister Teresa Wat.
The Shaolin Epo Wushu College in China is world renowned for skilful and exciting performances. Members demonstrate various skills of techniques, including pictographic animal boxing, knife and whip group boxing, variations of hard qigong (involving pikes and steel nails), and they use the 18 weapons developed by Shaolin monks over many decades.
As the proposed host communities are likely to benefit from this event series, Richmond says he is pursuing a cost-sharing agreement with these communities.
