In search of her mothership
The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street
by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho
Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2026
$24.95 / 9781771624794
Reviewed by Cathalynn Labonté-Smith
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Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho’s memoir reveals a heartbreaking secret behind the coifed hedges and thick, monied doors of Dunbar Street: that of the astronaut children, also known as parachute kids, in Vancouver. Wiley was one of many waifs left behind by well-intentioned parents in the care of nannies, older siblings, homestay parents, or relatives, either temporarily, or sometimes, permanently.
Imagine you’re twelve years-old and you’re still struggling to learn a new language and culture. You miss your family and friends back home. New friends at school? Forget about it. Could it get any worse? Always.
Wiley’s parents announce that they’re moving back to Taiwan, leaving her and her siblings in this rainy, lonely place, and her oldest brother was to be in charge.
. . .My father sighed, “I’ve tried but it’s just not going to happen here. They won’t recognize my degree or years of practice in Taiwan. . .I need to provide for you kids.” He didn’t need to say the money was running, because we already knew. . .
“What about us?” I whispered, setting my chopsticks down.
“Your brother will look after you,” Baba said, nodding at my brother, who sat stone-faced. . .“He will be in charge of the house and you girls.”
My sisters and I exchanged looks of horror. Our twenty-one-year-old brother, taciturn and impatient with us, seemed the worst possible choice for guardian.
The alternative would be unacceptable to her parents—find low-paying jobs, sell their home in Dunbar and move to the more affordable east side, or maybe rent out the basement and crowd their kids together on the main floor.
Her father, a physician, unable to practice in Canada, would likely be forced to have his kids work in minimum wage jobs to keep the household afloat. Something I saw as a high school teacher on the east side of Vancouver in the 2000s. Kids who fall asleep in class because they worked night shifts, not to buy designer jeans and concert tickets, but because they were feeding their family and keeping a roof over their heads.
Canada shot itself in the foot by protecting our physicians’ jobs then, by not allowing immigrant doctors, like Wiley’s dad, to practice. We’re unable to meet the demand for doctors now with our increased and aging population.
Taiwan’s Plight
Wiley gives the historical context that leads her parents to leave their precious children in Vancouver. Taiwan, they felt, was at the mercy of China’s aspirations, and nothing has changed in that regard.
On January 1, 1979, my parents’ nightmare wakened with Washington’s One China Policy, which officially severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan (the Republic of China) in favour of the People’s Republic of China. Later that year, the US government under President Jimmy Carter tore up the US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty and replaced it with the wishy-washy Taiwan Relations Act, which further consigned Taiwan to a geopolitical ambiguity. The Act either recognized Taiwan as a sovereign nation nor fully committed to defending Taiwan in the event of an invasion by the PRC. Overnight, 17 million Taiwanese were tossed into a sea of uncertainty.
The reason her parents could leave their children behind in Vancouver was that their eldest brother was old enough to be their guardian, otherwise Child Protection Services would’ve become involved. Still, Wiley kept her family situation secret.
Her contact with her parents was limited to a monthly call on a landline telephone, when each minute of a call cost as much as crypto. A ten-minute call divided by five voices, and as the youngest she talked last when there were mere seconds left. There isn’t much time to share her experiences in the past month since they last spoke.
Her parents visited only few times a year on holidays. During those visits, her parents communicated their high expectations for Wiley and her siblings to keep the house in Dunbar tidy and their grades high. There was no time for bonding before they ripped themselves away from the children again.
While Wiley manifested her teenage misery of being abandoned in a strange country by developing eating disorders, I was a new grad from the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing program, living down the hill from her and her siblings at Alma and Broadway in a rental basement suite, where slugs held slime races up and down our bathroom wall. I was already starting my career as a freelancer.
Both Wiley and I heard the same fireworks of Expo ‘86 every night echoing from The Plaza of Nations wondering what our futures held. In the early 2000s, while Wiley was looking for a soft place to land as a young adult, I was a high school English and Journalism teacher who taught and mentored astronaut children like her.
Because K-12 children are exempt from the kind of permits that postsecondary students are required to have and the accompanying caps. It’s difficult to know how many astronaut kids are in Canada, including homestay students and astronaut children, but judging by the number of post-secondary students the number is significant:
The total number of international students enrolled in the B.C. public postsecondary system has more than doubled over the last decade, increasing by roughly 53,833 students, from 38,916 students in 2013/2014 to 92,749 to 2022/2023.
In July of 2024, the Province of B.C. reported 553,000 postsecondary students enrolled in B.C. public and private institutions, of which 217,600 were international students (based on study permits): 111,900 in public post-secondary and 105,700 in private postsecondary institutions. . .and also includes some analysis of 2,706 international B.C. grade 12 graduates from B.C. public and B.C. independent schools.
International students make up 21.5% of the total headcount enrollment (domestic and international combined) in B.C. public postsecondary institutions and this varies by institution, from a high of 38.6% for Langara College to less than 4.1% for College of the Rockies.
-Joanne Heslop, International Students in BC’s Education Systems: Summary of Research from the Student Transitions Project, BC Education and Advanced Education Ministries and Post-Secondary Institutions
I observed that most homestay parents and guardians were generous with their time and attention to homestay kids, but some abused the system by stuffing as many homestay kids as possible into rooms crammed with bunkbeds, whereas the provincial guideline is three homestay children per household (K-12 International Student Homestay Guidelines, BC Ministry of Education and Child Care, 2024).
In Search of a Soothsayer
Wiley knew her destiny wasn’t going to be like her three sisters. As a Canadian with dual Taiwanese citizenship, she didn’t want to return to Taiwan and marry a successful man and raise children like they did. Wiley yearned to know what her future would be and searched out a soothsayer on an infrequent trip to Taiwan. To her disappointment the fortune teller was gone, so she had to determine her own fate.
Her final challenge in the book is a trip home during the pandemic, a surreal experience of two-weeks mandatory quarantine in a hotel at the airport in Taiwan while her Baba is on his deathbed. Her coffee order mix-up unhinges her.
As I hang up, anger twitches through my jittery limbs until suddenly, I’m convinced she’s the one. . .She must have done it, swapped out my latte for her shit coffee. I picture her downstairs, sipping my frothy drink, watching a screen of hallways, waiting to pounce on the slightest transgression.
I leap over to the door and yank it open again. Now I see it, a convex fisheye camera tucked under the walk sconce opposite my door. Without stepping into the hall, I scrunch up my whole face and scream at the dead eye . . ., “Enjoy my latte, asshole! I hope you’re lactose intolerant!”
What I’d have liked to have seen in this memoir were a few family pictures both in Taiwan and Dunbar, and references to research on this topic, such as how many children were in the same situation as herself, not that this would’ve been easy information to come by. Perhaps, some conversations with other astronaut children about the lasting impact that growing up like an orphan had on them as well would’ve added to the depth of the book.
Wiley wonders in her memoir who she might’ve been if she hadn’t been ripped away from the only life she’d ever known in Taiwan, versus raising herself in Vancouver. If her parents had known that life would remain stable in Taiwan, would they make the same choices for their children, or were they thinking of their grandchildren and great grandchildren as well?
She’s currently writing a work of fiction. “Memoir is too hard. Way too close to the bone,” she says. Courageous are those who share their truth so others don’t feel alone. Her memoir evokes compassion for the tens of thousands of astronaut/parachute/satellite/homestay children among us.
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Cathalynn Cindy Labonté-Smith grew up in the Lethbridge and Cardston areas of Alberta and moved to Vancouver to complete a BFA in Creative Writing at UBC. She later taught English, Journalism, and other subjects at Vancouver high schools. She currently lives in Gibsons (and North Vancouver) where she founded the Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society, including the annual Art & Words Festival, the Book Awards for BC Authors, and a literary map. Her previous book, Rescue Me: Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue (Caitlin Press), was a bestseller in BC. She has a new book, I’m Not A Mormon (Anymore), to be released in Winter 2026, available for preorder from Caitlin Press or Amazon.ca. [Editor’s Note: Cathalynn Labonté-Smith recently wrote an essay on the subject of book awards, has recently reviewed books by Lori Thicke, Cathy Burrell, Sheila Anne Wray, Susan Aglukark, and Rob Fillo, and interviewed PP Wong and Bob McDonald for The British Columbia Review.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster