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Why three prominent Chinese-Canadian writers launched a $10-million plagiarism suit against Ling Zhang

A tale of death threats, tarnished reputations and literary jealousy
By Leah McLaren

(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)

The streets near Scarborough’s Confederation Park curve and loop in a vertiginous web. The neighbourhood was built in the 1970s—several blocks of low-lying split-levels and bungalows divided by neatly trimmed hedges and 20-foot pines. The 401 is just a few blocks away, but these houses are quiet and isolated, even prim. Ling Zhang lives here in a large mock Tudor. She answers the door on the first ring, a diminutive woman with full moon cheeks and a bashful smile. At 54, she wears her hair in a wispy, youthful updo and is dressed in a peacock-blue sundress, a simple cardigan and slippers. The house is immaculate. We pass through a large front hall with a formal dining and living room off either side. Matching white leather sofas sprawl across polished cherry floors. Everywhere I look, there are vases filled with flowers in pastel pink and white. They’re all fake, but the effect is cheerful.

In the kitchen, Zhang makes me a cup of tea. Her husband, Ken He, a slight man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, pops in to say hello—but not much else. Zhang explains his English isn’t great. “Moving to Toronto was a big sacrifice for him,” she says. The couple met in Vancouver, at the church where Zhang, a born-again Christian, was baptized as an adult. They came to Toronto so Zhang could take a job at Scarborough General Hospital as an audiologist. Her husband, who was an ophthalmologist in China, now sells real estate to the GTA’s Chinese immigrant community.

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The Goods

From the Print Edition

December 9, 2011 | 12:30 pm

8 Comments

The List: Ten things Blue Rodeo frontman and Canadian rock icon Jim Cuddy can’t live without

The List | Jim Cuddy Photography by John Cullen

The List | Jim Cuddy 1| My skates
I play a lot of hockey. It’s amazing that at my age I still get thrilled about skates, but I do. These ones are by Graf, and they’re customized to my feet.

The List | Jim Cuddy 2| My Gretsch
It’s a 1948 acoustic on long-term—maybe permanent—loan from Colin Cripps, who’s in my band. I got it from him 14 years ago and used it to write my first solo record. Since then it’s become my go-to guitar for writing.

The List | Jim Cuddy 3| My talisman
I bought these Tibetan prayer beads when my wife and I were in China for the 2008 Olympics. We got all wrapped up in the commercialism of the Games, and then we went to this rural place near the Great Wall that was beautiful and calm and run by Tibetans. The beads remind me of that tranquility.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

September 29, 2011 | 10:25 am

24 Comments

Jan Wong: how the rise of horticultural training at Toronto schools is bad for students

While we’re busy teaching our kids to tend school gardens, they’re failing provincial tests in reading, writing and math. The folly of the new enviro-propaganda

(Illustration: Tavis Coburn)

This fall, hundreds of Toronto students are harvesting beets and zucchini from their school gardens. I say: nice photo op, bad idea. The argument for school gardens assumes that by grubbing in the dirt, kids will learn to love eating vegetables. They won’t think chickens hatch into this world as deep-fried nuggets. And they’ll develop a respect for nature.

Here’s the counter-argument: our students shouldn’t be out scrabbling in the hot sun when one in five can’t pass the Grade 10 literacy test administered by the provincially funded Education Quality and Accountability Office. And while Canadian students score high internationally in reading, mathematics and the sciences, Statistics Canada says our relative ranking is declining due to improved performance by other countries. In this era of global competition, we can’t afford to let other nations nip at our heels.

Half of Toronto’s population was born outside Canada, and it’s a safe bet many of them came here for a better life, including a good education for their offspring. A lot of immigrants originate from agrarian regions of countries such as India, Pakistan, China and the Philippines. The last thing these newcomers need is a morality crusade about carrots. Yet more than 200 of Toronto’s nearly 600 public schools now have gardens, and an army of well-meaning parents, volunteers, activists and advocacy organizations with a social agenda is successfully lobbying for more.

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

July 29, 2011 | 1:15 pm

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Camera: Henry Kissinger, Brian Mulroney and other noted brains and statesmen at the Munk Debates after-party

(Image: George Pimentel Photography)

June 17. Last year’s verbal slugfest between former British PM Tony Blair and journalist Christopher Hitchens established the Munk Debates as a must-attend event for Toronto’s intelligentsia. This year’s showdown affirmed that reputation. Harvard pop economist Niall Ferguson and Chinese scholar David Li argued that “the 21st century will belong to China,” while Henry Kissinger and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria opposed the motion. Kissinger commanded the stage, then made his way down the hall to the VIP reception and ruled the room. Guests practically lined up for one-on-one time with the Cold War icon, including Brian Mulroney, Adrienne Clarkson and Michael Ignatieff, who yanked his wife Zsuzsanna away from a conversation with Steve Paikin to get at the esteemed statesman. But no one got as close as Zakaria. After it was announced that he and Kissinger had won, he flashed his TV-trained smile and surprised his debate partner with a man hug.

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The Informer

Quibbling Rivalries

May 5, 2011 | 2:49 pm

3 Comments

Kissinger versus Ferguson: three things we hope to see at the next Munk Debates

It’s interesting—in the “kind of weird” sense of the term—that an academic debate hosted by the University of Toronto garners the attention that it does. Nonetheless, the Munk Debates have somehow managed to make a splash on the international scene (which is exactly the sort of splash Toronto cares about). Whether the subject is the environment or atheism, the foreign press corps takes note, and the next debate should be no different, as Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria square off against Niall Ferguson and David Daokui Li over whether the 21st century will belong to China. Given the stodgy, prim and proper environs, those in attendance will probably be painfully polite—but we’re still holding out hope for some fireworks. A small wish list after the jump.

1. Someone brings up Rising Sun
It may be a distant memory now, but back in the early 1990s, plenty of smart people thought that Japan would supplant the U.S. as the world’s biggest superpower. One real-estate bubble—and resultant economic collapse—later, and Japan’s economy has spent nearly 20 years underperforming. It makes the entire genre of Japan’s-coming-to-eat-our-lunch fiction look rather silly.

2. Someone brings up Wilfrid Laurier
If the supposed best and brightest couldn’t predict the future two decades ago, they probably shouldn’t attempt a century’s worth of guessing. Seriously: predicting how the 21st century is going to pan out in 2011 is about as hubristic as saying, in 1904, that Canada would “fill the 20th century.”

3. Someone goads Henry Kissinger
It’s a shame the debate is likely to be so gosh-darn polite, because we’d be awfully tempted to give Kissinger a poke and a prod. Say, if he claims China can’t sustain its power without respecting human rights, or if he argues that China needs to respect the rule of law. Or better yet, if he says he’s worried about China’s treatment of other, smaller Asian countries around it.

• Be it resolved the 21st century will belong to China [Munk Debates]

The Goods

Manly Men

January 21, 2011 | 3:41 pm

3 Comments

Canadian male model is the new face of Louis Vuitton

When we think of Canadian models, we usually think of the women—Daria Werbowy, Jessica Stam, Linda Evangelista, Coco Rocha—but Louis Vuitton has just thrown a man into the mix. Godfrey Gao, a Vancouver-born Taipei resident, is the newest face of Vuitton, posing for the spring-summer 2011 campaign with one of the brand’s trademark Damier messenger bags—the graphite Elvis version. The brand’s first Asian model, Gao is a star in Taiwan, where he is an actor in television and movies. Landing the gig has some dubbing Gao as the first Asian male supermodel.

Planting Gao on ads in China is a stroke of genius for the designer. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, the French luxury powerhouse that owns Vuitton, does extremely well in China. As does Gao—he’s beloved throughout the mainland and Taiwan after starring in a number of television shows and the film All About Women.

• The world’s first Asian male supermodel [The Guardian]
• Canadian model the new face of Louis Vuitton [Toronto Star]

The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 15, 2010 | 9:56 am

1 Comment

The 1% Club: the story behind Weizhen Tang—Toronto’s Bernie Madoff

Weizhen Tang told his investors they deserved to be rich and only he could make them so. Even now, after he lost all their money and was charged with running one of the country’s largest Ponzi schemes, his disciples still want him to keep trading. They believe it’s the only way they’ll get their $30 million back By Nicholas Stein, Illustrations by Jeffrey Smith

When Air Canada flight 88 from Shanghai arrived an hour late at Pearson airport last January 13, a group of officers from the Toronto Police fraud squad were waiting to meet it. They were there to apprehend Weizhen Tang, a 51-year-old native of China who had lived in Toronto since the early 1990s. Tang was accused of perpetrating one of the largest investment frauds in Canadian history: a Ponzi scheme involving up to 200 victims in Toronto, the United States and China. Two weeks earlier, he had agreed to surrender to authorities at Pearson, but he never arrived, prompting police to issue a warrant for his arrest. They feared he’d stay in China to evade prosecution.

As the passengers of flight 88 watched from their seats, the officers entered the aircraft and made their way through the cabin. This time, Tang was on board. They handcuffed him, escorted him into a police cruiser, and drove to 51 Division. As the car pulled up, Tang stared forlornly out the window at the media horde gathered to document his capture. Wrapped from the neck down in a dark coat and scarf, his eyes peering from behind wire-rimmed glasses, he looked small and vulnerable. Inside the station, he was stripped and searched.

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The Informer

My Name Is Lucre

November 1, 2010 | 12:15 pm

2 Comments

Pandas are coming to Toronto—for $11 million

Panda price tag: grin and bear it (Image: Mike Johnston)

Giorgio Mammoliti is finally going to get his bears. For the past nine years, the city councillor and mayoral also-ran has been pushing expensively tirelessly to help the Toronto Zoo obtain two rare giant pandas from China. Now that a deal has been reached with Beijing, the animals should be Scarborough-bound by 2012 (one of them is even named Moi Moi, after former mayor Mel Lastman). There’s just one more hurdle: the city needs to put together about $11 million to get them here. In Rob Ford’s Toronto, even one of the mayor-elect’s closest allies may not be able to get that kind of gravy funding from city coffers.

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The Informer

The New Normal

August 26, 2010 | 9:07 am

2 Comments

Pandas in Toronto: city caught between wanting cute things and wanting to cut spending

Rent boy: a panda can cost up to $1 million per year (Image: popofatticus)

In a time of tightened belts and mayoral candidates trying to out-parsimony one another, it’s kind of surprising to see the city sign up for another huge expenditure, but Giorgio Mammoliti (whose antics we kind of miss) really wants Toronto to have a panda. He and the Toronto Zoo’s special panda acquisition team are heading out to the wilds of China to get the city its own Ling-Ling. We’re holding out hope that Mammoliti will personally wrestle the panda to the ground before earning its love with delicious bamboo treats, but the reality will probably be less exciting.

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The Dish

Read All About It

August 20, 2010 | 11:50 am

7 Comments

Turns out that disposable chopsticks are an environmental nightmare

Sticky situation: eating implements create environmental problems (Image: Mykl Roventine)

Toronto loves Asian food. Witness the city’s endless supply of sushi restaurants and packed Chinese eateries— declared some of the best in North America. But all that glory and love comes with a hefty price: the burgeoning ecological disaster that is the disposable chopstick. In China, a jaw-dropping 100 acres of trees are felled per day to keep up with demand for the disposable utensils, according to Greenpeace China. That works out to about 16 to 25 million trees per year.

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The Informer

The New Normal

July 7, 2010 | 8:45 am

Comments

Dalai Lama rolls into Toronto this October

Toronto has two tidbits of news to celebrate for the Dalai Lama today: his 75th birthday and the announcement that he will be visiting in October. The fall visit will feature a series of speeches at the Rogers Centre, as well as a much-anticipated event at the grand opening of the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre on October 23. The last time the Dalai Lama was here was in 2007, after he became an honourary Canadian citizen.

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The Informer

Mayor May Not

June 9, 2010 | 1:09 pm

2 Comments

Only Smitherman can go to China (on China’s dime)

Pit bull in China: George Smitherman among those headed to the People's Republic (Image: Shaun Merritt)

The Chinese government is holding a Mayor’s Forum on Tourism and has invited (according to its Web site) 222 representatives from cities all over the planet. The Chinese consulate in Toronto made a curious selection in its local representative for the all-expenses-paid trip: George Smitherman. His opponents in the mayor’s race are none too pleased, going so far as to say Smitherman will owe the Chinese favours after this. Furious George doesn’t see it this way, natch.

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The Dish

Caffeine High

May 17, 2010 | 3:20 pm

8 Comments

Tim Hortons eyes China and India as part of world domination scheme

Rim-rolling epidemic to spread across the world (Image: saipal)

Tim Hortons is planning to expand its legacy (and its conspicuously poor grammar) to the rest of the world within the next four years. While the chain has a tenuous foothold in some parts of the U.S.—including 12 locations in New York City—Timmies execs will pitch an international growth strategy to the board of directors next month. The symbol of all that is Canadian also wants to break out of breakfast and snacks to boost sales at other times of the day.

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The Informer

March of Crimes

April 7, 2010 | 2:44 pm

Comments

Torontonian super-nerds bust cyber-crime ring that stole NATO plans, Dalai Lama’s e-mail

On the DL: We doubt the Dalai Lama was ROTFL

In what may be the least surprising news to make the front pages of newspapers this year, a team of University of Toronto–led computer security experts have concluded that people use the Internet to spy on other people. In this case, huge amounts of highly sensitive data has been hacked into, and the suspect in the case is China. Well, it might not be the Chinese government, but a series of elaborate cyber-attacks targeting sensitive government data from countries around the world have been emanating from within China. Well, maybe not even from China, as the researchers freely admit that it’s easy for hackers to mask the true origin of their attacks. At any rate, somebody, somewhere is using such Internet services as Twitter, Blogspot and Yahoo Mail to steal classified information and a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail (yes, the Dalai Lama has e-mail).

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The Dish

Read All About It

January 19, 2010 | 8:39 am

Comments

Man gets 10 years for stealing steak, a chocolate Great Wall, floor collapses at Weight Watchers meeting

Kraft wants to know what kind of Canadian can resist this (Photo by Stephen Boisvert)

• Mark Zachary of Orangeburg, South Carolina, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing an $80 New York strip loin. But Zachary says he was merely “massaging” the steak, not stealing it. The jury disagreed and found him guilty of shoplifting, imposing the state’s maximum sentence for the offence; it was his ninth. We’re unsure of where to file this story—under legal oddity or oddball romance? [WCNC Charlotte]

• At a regular weigh-in in Vaxjo, south-central Sweden, a small Weight Watchers group had a start when the floor collapsed beneath them. Unlike the shared weight of this unfortunate, though uninjured, group, the irony of the collapse is immeasurable. [New York Post]

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