EUGENE YAO, 1946-2008
Eugene Yao, 61: Chinese activist
Feb 23, 2008 04:30 AM
John Goddard
staff reporter, Toronto Star
Chinatown community leader and founder of the popular Urbane Cyclist shop, Eugene Yao, has died at 61. True to his values, Yao created the shop 10 years ago near John and Queen Sts. as a workers' co-operative and commuter cyclists' hub.
"It's like an old-style neighbourhood store," customer and friend Dora Nipp said yesterday. "Everybody knows you. It has all the courtesies and civilities of yesterday."
Yao was born in 1946 in Shanghai, China, and came to Canada in 1969 as an electrical engineering student at McGill University.
"He came to my 21st birthday party and we made an acquaintance, "recalled his wife, Winnie Ng, a McGill sociology student at the time. "After that, I bumped into him in the street. He was riding a bicycle and I said I'd like to learn."
Yao and Ng married and in 1975 moved to Toronto. He took a series of engineering jobs with large corporations, and both became prominent community activists in the Spadina-Dundas area.
She worked at Settlement House helping various waves of immigrants, ran for Parliament as Trinity-Spadina' s New Democratic Party candidate in 1993 and is on leave from her position as Ontario director of the Canadian Labour Congress to study for a PhD.
He helped establish English-language classes for garment workers and later served as Toronto president of the Chinese Canadian National Council.
In 1994, Yao lost his job to corporate restructuring. "He later said it was a blessing in disguise," Ng said. "It freed him to take a risk and do something entirely different."
Long a passionate environmentalist and bicycle lover, Yao took a course from the Barnett Bicycle Institute in Colorado and a business course from Seneca College. With three others and neighbourhood volunteer help, Yao opened the cycling shop as a democratic co-operative of worker-members.
"I can go away for a month and know that everything will be okay," he told an interviewer last year.
Yao died Feb. 12 of liver and heart problems. A celebration of his life [was held February 23], 4-6p.m., at Cecil Community Centre, 58 Cecil St.
The Ontario College of Art and Design is accepting donations for the Eugene Yao Urbane Cyclist Bicycle Design Award. For more information on donating, email
mailto:development@ ocad.ca or call 416-977-6000, Ext. 487.
More information about Urbane Cyclist, a worker-owned and operated co-operative: http://www.ucycle. com/
