Jim Wong-Chu (朱藹信; January 28, 1949 – July 11, 2017) was a Canadian activist, community organizer, poet, author, editor, and historian.
Born in Hong Kong on January 28, 1949,[6] Jim Wong-Chu came to Canada in 1953 at age four as a paper son, to live with his aunt and uncle in British Columbia.
[12] During his time at the Vancouver School of Art, Wong-Chu wrote on culture and assimilation for the CFRO-FM radio program called "Pender Guy".
[14] One of Wong-Chu's most successful projects took place in the library stacks of the University of British Columbia, where he researched the entire inventory of books and journals, in search of writings dating back ten to 20 years.
[7] The organization fundraised for the establishment of the Emerging Writer Award; winners of the prize have included Rita Wong and Jamie Liew.
To honour his legacy, the Victoria Arts Council worked with Arsenal Pulp Press, Ricepaper Magazine, LiterAsian Festival and the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop to translate Wong-Chu's poem "Monsoon" from Chinatown Ghosts into a permanent lightbox sign in Victoria's famed Fan Tan Alley.
This double-sided sign, with the poem in English on one side and in Chinese on the other, was produced as the first iteration of the Victoria Arts Council's Poetry in Public campaign (installed October 2019), working with translators Jan Walls and May Yan-Mountain.