Painting his story on the World Wide Web

Meet Johnny Vong, another member of the CaribbeanTales team

By Tumelo E. Phali | Posted: February 28, 2005

Just by looking at him, one wouldn’t have the remotest imagination about the real story behind Johnny’s childhood history. The lingering ‘happy expression’ on his face belies a touching story worth interpreting on a wall painting.

It is a story shared by many migrants to Canada – those from the Caribbean, and those who are not.

Born of Chinese-Vietnamese parents in Thailand, Johnny arrived here in Canada as a small child with his parents who were fleeing political turmoil and the prospect of a bleak life in Communist Vietnam. Now, glad to be where he is, Johnny can’t thank his parents enough for their hard-fought battle to secure him a life he may never have had.

He achieved all of his academic credentials in Toronto – from elementary education through to high school at Emery Collegiate.

Feeling stifled by too much theoretical studies while at high school, in 1998 Johnny started freelancing as a Graphic Designer Assistant at Truespectra, a server imaging company where part of his responsibilities was to assist in the development of sophisticated software for delivering multimedia over the world wide web.

Straight out of the Ontario College of Art and Design where he studied for four years, he joined LEDA SERENE FILMS in Toronto, Ontario, in 2003 where he started working as a website assistant and is currently the Technical Coordinator for the company.

After some considerable amount of persuasion, Johnny allowed me a moment to disturb the flow of his hectic schedule to find out some facts about him and his work.

His studio inspires the spirit to work the minute you walk in – state of the art editing and designing equipment, stacks of computer software - legal and certified copies, by the way - amongst them there are volumes of computer program manuals – all arranged methodically on his shelf.

Can you briefly introduce yourself to our Caribbeantales readers and tell us what you do?

Johnny Vong, here. I’m just your typical techie, a web developer, graphic designer…been doing this stuff since 1995 as an obsessive hobby. I’m as exciting as rice cake.

So, this is more of a hobby than just a way to earn a living?

Well, it’s to make a living as much as it is something I love to do.

And how did this relationship with machines start?

My dad is a mechanic. He is a bit of a tinker, always fixing stuff – like, cars, appliances and a whole lot of gadgets. So, we can say it’s genetic. I got my first computer at age 14, started to do as many things with it as possible, and, the rest is history…

Johnny was the only one who owned a computer amongst his friends at the time that PC’s and the Internet were just becoming popular.

And due to that fact, every time I broke my computer I had to learn how to fix it myself. Man, I must have crashed that machine a thousand times.

What influence have your parents had on your work or life in general?

Not much work-wise because my dad actually wanted me to be an Engineer … he still does. He used to bring home these Engineering magazines everyday and tried to sway me into it that way, but I had different interests.

You were very young when you were brought to Canada, do your parents tell you about your place of birth and about their life when they were growing up?

Like most immigrants, they do dream of going back one day. The place where I was born was actually just a stop-over place for my parents who were on their way to the "Land of Opportunities". We ended up in Canada instead... for the better, really. One interesting story, though, my parents told me as a child was when the boat they were on was jacked by pirates. And my mother was pregnant with me, and they robbed her of everything she had at gunpoint. As lurid as it sounds to people like you and me who watch pirates, ol' Captain Hook on TV, this situation with my mom is no different than a violent carjacking.

Do you have a history of oral storytelling in your family or culture?

I rarely have conversations with my parents. It's unfortunate, but it's the kind of culture and language conflict that you read about, you know. I am very much Western, whereas they are very much Eastern. But I can't help but empathize with my parents who struggle not only with me, but with Canada too. As far as oral storytelling goes in my culture... I'm not sure... didn't the Chinese invent paper?

Does storytelling or oral culture figure in your line of work, if so, how? How has that impacted you personally?

Not really in my professional work, but in my personal work, storytelling especially "good" storytelling is an art form and lifelong practice. I'm of the belief that it's not so much what you tell - if you think you've got a unique idea that's never been done before, you're probably wrong - rather it's how you tell it with your style and sensibilities, that's exciting. Finding interesting and idiosyncratic methods of storytelling is what drives me to do what I do.

What do you think are the comprehensive benefits of a project like caribbeantales.ca beyond serving people of Caribbean origin?

I think the true value of caribbeantales.ca is its dedication to these books and its writers. I mean the Web is a vast place, and it would be idiotic of me to suggest that we are doing the world a favour. We are just putting it out there for people, people have choice, and they can read whatever they want. We are just putting arrows out to guide folks towards this extraordinary literature, and hopefully draw some new readers.

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