Part 5 of 5: An Interview with Tristen

* This is the last in a series of interviews conducted by Manvi Ansal, Provincial Fair 2011 Alumnus, with each of the Richmond-Delta Provincial Fair 2013 delegates. 

Name: Tristen Wong

Grade: 5

City: Richmond

Project Title: Blood and Iron: Chinese Canadians coming to work on the CPR

Tristen’s topic is still important in today’s world because when many people think about the CPR, they think about the Caucasian and Scottish people that built it, but they don’t even realize that Chinese immigrants helped make it too. Without the Chinese, there would be no CPR. When Tristen heard that she had to narrow her topic, she chose it on the Chinese Immigrants that made it, not about everybody that contributed. 

The greatest challenge of making her project was to make her project straight, neat and perfect because she didn’t want it to be messy. She also said that when she had to write a report, she had to do at least 6-7 drafts until it because good enough.  

 Tristen would change the actual project board because it was yellow, but she wanted to change it to blue. It would be like the sky. She had a model of the railroad on her board, and she didn’t think it would make sense for the sky to be yellow.   

Tristen got surprised when John A. MacDonald gave a speech about the CPR, he didn’t mention anything about the Chinese.  Also, the Chinese were being paid 1 dollar when the whites were being paid 2 dollars. They didn’t know that they were being cheated because in China they were used to earning 9 cents.