For Judge Albert Wong, a train ride through Canada taught him about the generosity of his fellow citizens

"I came from Malaysia as a 13-year-old. We landed in Vancouver in 1971. It was my mother and four children. My father came ahead of us. We were going to catch the train from Vancouver to Sudbury. In Malaysia when you get on a train in about five hours you've gone from top to bottom of the country. We didn't quite appreciate that it was going to be about three days on the train. The first night my poor mother is with four kids and I was the oldest at 13. We went to the dining car. At that time the exchange rate was six Malaysian dollars to one Canadian dollar. We saw that the hamburger was six dollars. That's 36 Malaysian dollars! When my parents left Malaysia, they were paying 30 dollars in rent in government housing. So you can just imagine us all looking at the menu."

We decided we could order a bowl of soup. My youngest brother and sister shared the soup, and my brother and I shared the crackers and we went to bed.

"We decided we could order a bowl of soup. My youngest brother and sister shared the soup, and my brother and I shared the crackers and we went to bed. We went back to the dining car the next morning. All of a sudden food started to appear at our table and we panicked. We thought there was a mistake and we can't pay for this. We said to the waiter, 'We didn't order this.' He says, 'That table there has bought you this,' and 'That table there has bought you that.' It really impressed on me how generous Canadians are."

— Judge Albert Wong, Born in Malaysia. Lives in Toronto. 

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