GUNG HAGGIS FAT CHOY: 
The CBC TV special - summaries and video clip
- view the origin of Gung Haggis Fat Choy and Toddish McWong

Robbie Burns Day meets Chinese New Year. 
Two separate cultures. 
Nothing in common. 
Everything in common.

View this video clip from the CBC television performance special "GUNG HAGGIS FAT CHOY."  The 30 minute show was created in the fall of 2003 on a small budget, and debuted on January 24th, and 25th, 2004.  It recieved two nominations for Leo Awards for Best Musical/Variety, and Best Direction for Musical/ Variety.


Gung Haggis Fat Choy - View Clip
Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Chinese New Year. Robbie Burns Supper. Gung Haggis Fat Choy fuses the two unique cultural events in a celebration of music, dance and tradition. Featuring performances by The Paperboys and Silk Road Music.  A CBC Television production.
It was produced by CBC who hired Moyra Rodger to produce and it was directed by Moyra with Ken Stewart.  It was amazing to join them on the different sets as they filmed each segment.  I did get paid by CBC as a consultant, and for use of the television rights for the name "Gung Haggis Fat Choy."

The show blended together stories, music and dance from Chinese and Scottish cultures to highlight both Robbie Burns Day and Chinese New Year celebrations.  I was involved in the planning stages, as well as being filmed for the "Origins of Gung Haggis Fat Choy" segment which featured me donning a Scottish outfit, adjusting the buckles of the kilt, and the "flashes" which hold up the socks.

"Only one student volunteered to carry the haggis for the Robbie Burns Celebration at Simon Fraser University" says the narrator retelling a short version of how I first developed the "Gung Haggis Fat Choy" concept.  Check my version of the origins here: http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/OriginsofGungHaggisFatChoy/_archives/2004/1/16/14225.html

There was a strong belief to ensure that each segment had something Chinese and something Scottish in each of the music performance segments.   Also featured was a cartoon segment about poet Robert Burns, with Monty Pythonesque animation style.  And on the serious side... a straight reading of Burns' "Address to a Haggis" by ex-Scotsman Neil Gray, a non-professional actor but loyal fan of The Goon Show, and Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners since 2002.

Every segment was short and quick paced.  Information preceded each musical performance, giving background on not only Scottish and Canadian culture, but also on Gung Haggis Fat Choy.  Archival film footage highlighted a segment about the making of haggis.  Archival film footage of Vancouver's Chinatown during its heyday during the neon nightclub years from the 1950's and 1960's featuring long gone restaurants and dinner nightclubs such as the Bamboo Terrace and the Marco Polo.

A simulated Chinese New Year dinner featured my bagpiper friend Joe McDonald, my parents, grandmother, girlfriend, friend Don Montgomery with his two young children, and friends Ray and Ula.  Typical Chinese New Year food dishes were served as well as traditional haggis.  Joe wore his full Scottish regalia outfit complete with bear skin hat, while I wore my beautiful Chinese jacket.  This was a fun segment to film.  My father passed out li-see, lucky money red envelops, to pass out to the children and young single adults.  We actually had four generations represented.  My grand mother, my parents, my friends, and my friend Don and his two young children who are actually half-Chinese and half-Caucasian.  It was a perfect example of what Gung Haggis Fat Choy is about... blending Scottish-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian cultures and bloodlines.  In fact, all my maternal cousins have married Caucasian partners, and our family dinners feature little Hapa children running around laughing and playing together.

The PAPERBOYS were filmed outside in October at the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Classical Garden.  This was the first music video ever filmed in the gardens, which were designed by my architect cousin Joe Wai.  This was exciting to watch being filmed because bagpiper Tim Fanning (aka Constable Tim Fanning of the Vancouver Police Department) and Chinese flautist Jin Min-Pang were added to Paperboys lineup.  This segment is an instrumental but filled with lots of great energy.  The premise is imagining what would happen if a Chinese flautist accidently meets a Scottish bagpiper in a Chinese Classical Garden where a Celtic-Canadian band is playing... just the normal Canadian thing in intercultural Vancouver... happens all the time... really!

SILK ROAD MUSIC is lead by Qiu Xia He and her husband Andre Thibault, who lovingly refers to her as "the boss."  They are joined in this segment by Willy on vocals, Zhimin Yu on Roan, and a Chinese vocalist.  The segment was filmed on Vancouver Chinatown's Keefer St.  It was a chilly November evening when we filmed at night.  One store stayed open late so we could film using its contents and site as the props and the set.  The segment also features archival footage of 1950's/1960's Vancouver Chinatown with all its neon lights as b-roll.  It's a great segment sung in both Mandarin Chinese and English.
 
JOE MCDONALD has been the "Official Gung Haggis Fat Choy" bagpiper since 2001, when the dinner only served 100 people.  For 2002, he joined me on an invterview on national CBC Radio with host Bill Richardson.  It was only natural to bring him into the CBC television performance special.  Joe performs with his band "Brave Waves" supplemented by singer Sharon Hung, performing an uptempo version of Auld Lang Syne.  Sharon is great singing... everybody asks "Who is the Chinese girl singing?" Joe has become a good musical friend since 2001, as has Sharon.  Both of them have performed at many Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners since our first meeting.  Sharon also performed with me for First Night Vancouver on Dec 31, 2004.

GEORGE SAPOUNIDIS is the Greek-Canadian who sings in Mandarin.  He is a big hit in Shanghai, and Chinese women literally "scream" a la Elvis at this mild mannered statistician from Ottawa.  George was a volunteer translator for the Chinese Olympic team in Athens 2004. In 2005 CTV made a television documentary about him titled "Chairman George." In the CBC tv special, Chinese fan dancers from the Vancouver Academy of Dance in a spectacular sequence which features the dancers and their fans, while a male voice sings in Mandarin Chinese.  The fans slowly reveal the mysterious face of the singing White man.

Links for the featured performers are:
For more stories about the GUNG HAGGIS FAT CHOY television performance special click on: