Todd Wong with Lion Head

Asian Canadian adventures in inter-cultural Vancouver
and home of Toddish McWong's Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.

Welcome to GungHaggisFatChoy.com

Home to my passions for my inter-cultural adventures,

Gung Haggis Fat Choy: Robbie Burns
Chinese New Year Dinner event.


Save Kogawa House campaign,

Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat team,

Find what you are looking for by
1) scroll the topics links,
2) use the search function

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat team
for lots of summer fun, fitness and friendship. We are a social team full of cultural vigor, that likes to eat.

We have been featured on television, local, national and international. We have a unique and internationally famous fundraiser dinner event.

We practice Sunday 1:30 pm -3:30 pm Tuesday 6pm-7:45pm Wednesday 6pm - 7:45 pm

We meet at Dragon Zone clubhouse - just south of Science World in Creekside Park above the Aquabus and dragon boat docks.

Our coach Todd Wong has 15+ years of experience including novice, recreational and competitive levels, and both community and corporate teams.

Our 2005 Season brought us the David Lam Award for being the team that best represented the multicultural spirit of the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival, and Bronze medals at the Vancouver International Taiwanese Dragon Boat Race. In 2007, we won Gold in B Division at Vernon Races.

For more information:
Click on Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat team information
phone: 604-987-7124-
e-mail: gunghaggis at yahoo dot ca

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2009 TICKETS Available in October 2008

WHAT: GUNG HAGGIS FAT CHOY: Toddish McWong's Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner - 12th Annual Dinner, celebrating 250th Anniversary of Robert Burns' birth + Chinese New Year's Eve.

WHEN: 6PM January 25 2009, SUNDAY
doors open 5pm


WHERE: Floata Chinese Restaurant,
#400-180 Keefer St.


CULTURE: Our Performers create something special for us every year with traditional and contemporary performances featuring everything in-between and beyond!

FOOD: A quirky fusion/mix/buffet of Scottish Canadian and Chinese Canadian culture 10 course Chinese banguet dinner
2004 - The debut of Gung Haggis Won-Ton
2005 - Haggis lettuce wrap!
2007 - Haggis dim sum appetizer buffet
2008 - Scotch tastings!
Watch for more surprises in 2008!






Description of 2006 Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner featuring performers: Rick Scott & Harry Wong, The Shirleys, Joe McDonald & Brave Waves, Sean Gunn, author Joy Kogawa, with co-host Prem Gill .

Media Inquiries
Call Gung Haggis Productions 604-987-7124

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Year Archive
View Article  Joy Kogawa House cited as example as campaign to save Al Purdy cabin in Eastern Ontario starts up
Joy Kogawa House cited as example as campaign to save Al Purdy cabin in Eastern Ontario starts up.

How important was it to save Joy Kogawa's childhood home?

Joy Kogawa House was recently cited in a Globe & Mail article about then endangered home of Al Purdy in an article by Patrick White titled: The house where Al Purdy lived is on the block

There may still be time to save it. But any effort would take a great deal of cash and organization, says Don Oravec, executive director of the Writers' Trust of Canada, which runs Pierre Berton's childhood home in Dawson City, Yukon, as a retreat, and raised funds to purchase the Vancouver house where novelist Joy Kogawa grew up. "The trick is not just buying the house." Oravec says. "It's also creating an endowment to maintain the place.

Canadian literature is an important part to our Canadian identity. Sustaining and supporting our writers has long been a struggle and an issue.  White writes that the house played an important role in Purdy's development as a poet.

The move soon paid off creatively, inspiring what is perhaps the most famous metamorphosis in Canadian literary history. Once a struggling writer of tortured romantic verse, Purdy and his work changed forever along the shores of Roblin Lake.

"It was really when they left Montreal and built that house that Al went into a kind of hibernation and came of age as a poet," says Purdy friend, poet and House of Anansi co-founder Dennis Lee, who first visited Ameliasburgh in the sixties to ink a book deal with Purdy.

Al Purdy, his wife Eurithe and their house also played a role in the development of author Michael Ondaatje and other writers by offering them refuge and support.

Michael Ondaatje, Tom Marshall and David Helwig hadn't published a single book between them when "Al and Eurithe simply invited us in," writes Ondaatje in the foreword to Purdy's collected works. "And why? Because we were poets! Not well-known writers or newspaper celebrities. ... These visits became essential to our lives. We weren't there for gossip, certainly not to discuss royalties and publishers. We were there to talk about poetry. Read poems aloud. Argue over them. Complain about prosody."

Read the entire article at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080712.ALPURDY12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/
View Article  Did Chinese discover BC first? Oldest new immigrants? DNA connections? Georgia Straight tackles the question?
Did the Chinese discover North America 1000 years before Columbus?

"Who were BC's first seafarers?" is the cover feature on this week's Georgia Straight?

Daniel Wood writes a very interesting feature that addresses the Chinese legendary land of Fu Sang, interviews underwater acheologist enthusiast Tom Beasley, and explores the Gavin Menzies book 1421, the Year China Discovered the World.

I have written about connections between First Nations and Chinese people when Storyscapes was exploring the oral history of such meetings:  Vancouver Storyscapes: Where the Chinese met the First Nations peoples

It's not unfathomable that the Chinese discovered North America first.  Afterall, ancient Chinese civilization and science was much further advanced than European civilization circa 500 AD.  According to Menzies, the Chinese had huge boats 5X the size of Columbus' flagship.  A lot of trade and knowledge migrated to Japan from China, and Japanese glass fishing floats have regularly made their way to BC's shores, due to ocean currents.

I have often spoke with BC's First Nations people about Chinese-First Nations connections.  Afterall, my mother's blood cousin is Rhonda Larrabee, chief of the Qayqayt (New Westminster) First Nations.  Larry Grant, Musqueam elder, is half Chinese, like cousin Rhonda.

When I was up in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), I spoke with Haida people about the shared "mongolian birthmark" that both Chinese and First Nations people are born with.
Check out my stories:

Check it out:
http://www.straight.com/article-152876/who-were-bcs-first-seafarers?

View Article  Rev. Chan Yu Tan is announced as winner for inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award
Rev Chan Yu Tan is inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award winner as the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association celebrates the 150 year history of Chinese-Canadians.


Rev. Chan Yu Tan was one of the first Chinese ordained in Canada.   He arrived in Canada in 1896, at age 33, following his elder brother Rev. Chan Sing Kai, who had arrived in 1888 at the invitation of the Methodist Church of Canada.

The Victoria Chinese Commerce Association has launched an ambitious awards program that will be celebrated at the Empress Hotel in Victoria BC, coinciding with BC 150 celebrations.  see www.150goldenmountain.ca.

Rev. Chan Yu Tan, my great-great-grandfather, is the first pioneer award recipient to be named for the
“British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural” 2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award.  Through the Chinese Methodist Church, he helped teach the congregations about Canadian ways, and to live a Christian life.  The Church was also the first organization to provide English language classes to Chinese immigrants.   Rev. Chan always emphasized learning to adapt to Canadian ways and culture, and was always wearing Western clothing.  Rev Chan Yu Tan ministered to Chinese people in Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo and New Westminister.

Our family now has reached the 7th generation, and is spread throughout North American with descendants being active in the communities of Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, as well as Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and Colorado. 

Our family has become very integrated into Canadian and American society.  Rev. Chan's son Luke became an actor in Hollywood.  Grandsons became Canadian soldiers during WW2 when they couldn't vote.  Subsequent generations became a lawyer, a doctor and even an Indian Chief -  as well as a city councilor in Calgary, a CBC television news reporter in Vancouver, and even a Miss Canada 2nd runner up.

Here's a picture of Rev. & Mrs. Chan Yu Tan with Rev. Chan's sister Phoebe on the far left.  Standing behind them are son Solomon and daughter Kate (my great-grandmother).  Standing beside them are sons Jack and Luke;  in front is daughter Rose, and between them is the young Millicent.

Read the Press Release from the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July __ 2008

Reverend Chan Yu Tan Wins the
“British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural”
2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award
Join Us in Celebration

The Victoria Chinese Commerce Association (VCCA) and the 150 Years In Golden Mountain Celebration Committee are acknowledges the tremendous contributions Chinese people have made to British Columbia since the province’s beginnings in 1858 by hosting an awards gala dinner on August 8, 2008 and a celebration pageant on August 9, 2008. The presenting sponsors for both events are RBC Royal Bank and Fairway Market. The celebrations are presented with the support of BC150 (the Province of British Columbia), the City of Victoria, and with the participation of the Government of Canada.

Sinclair Mar, chair of the celebration committee, illuminated the importance of the Golden Mountain Achievement Awards; “these awards are to honour the achievements of Chinese Canadians in the areas of business, the arts, culture, education, public service and community service. We also want to honour our pioneers and those who have helped the Chinese over the years.”

An independent Awards Selection Committee has reviewed nominations for the Golden Mountain Achievement Awards from all across the country, with nominees spanning generations from early pioneers to more recent contributors still, active in the community. The independent selection committee has completed the challenging task of choosing award winners from 150 years of worthy nominees.  While not all award winners will be released prior to the Awards dinner the VCCA is pleased to announce the late Reverend Chan Yu Tan as the winner of the “British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural 2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award”.

 Reverend Chan Yu Tan was born in Canton, China and immigrated to Canada's West Coast in 1896 with his wife, Wong Chiu Lin. He was one of the first Chinese in Canada to be ordained as a minister. Reverend Tan always stressed the importance of multiculturalism and his legacy of cultural fusion lives on amongst his predecessors.  His great-great-grandson, Todd Wong, is the creator of the decade old Vancouver tradition, the “Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner”; an event which mixes traditional Scottish and Chinese celebrations together in the city of Vancouver.  Great-granddaughter, Rhonda Lee, has also exercised her great-grandfather’s gift for multiculturalism, becoming the chief of the New Westminster band, the Qayqayt. 

This award, along with others, will be presented at the sold out Gala Awards Dinner at the Fairmont Empress to his surviving family. Hotel on August 8 (08/08/08, an auspicious "triple 8" in Chinese culture). The next night the VCCA, will present a celebration pageant at the Royal Theater where award winners have been invited to attend and enjoy the premiere of an original pageant.  Join them is celebrating 150 years of Chinese Canadian Achievements. 

Mr. Mar elaborated on the Pageant: “This will be an exciting original show, with many performers: actors, dancers and musicians. Chinese history will come alive with a mixture of cultural presentations and new choreography and new music composed specially for this celebration.  Ticket sales are strong and we recommend early reservations.

President of the VCCA, Amanda Mills, said “Members of the VCCA feel it is their privilege and duty to celebrate and honor their ancestors and those Chinese Canadians who have achieved so much in 150 years of service to Canada.”

For more information, please contact celebration chair Sinclair Mar at 250-382-5744 or VCCA president Amanda Mills at 250-727-0222, or visit www.150goldenmountain.ca

1 Attachments
View Article  Hapa Canada Day Eve!
Canada Day Eve is one of the greatest celebration events not celebrated...


Hapa-Canadian "Standing on Guard for Thee"! original drawing by Jeff Chiba Stearns

Why don't we have a midnight countdown to celebrate our country's birthday?  Okay, there are fireworks celebrations at the end of Canada Day, but everybody has to go to work the next morning.  Aren't holidays better celebrated when you can stay up late the night before, then sleep in?

Last night, I met up with two friends, Leanne Riding and Judy Maxwell.  When I introduced them, it took only a few minutes before one of them said "Are you hapa?"

And this was in a darkened room!

If people think that "Canadian Identity"is a conundrum, try to define being Hapa.  It's a Hawaiian term that is now more commonly used to define mixed race Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans.

My friend John Endo Greenaway writes this:

"Some people don’t like the term hapa, given its somewhat derogatory roots, but many mixed Asian-Canadians/Amercians have embraced it, although it has yet to enter the mainstream vocabulary. But whatever term you want to use, hapas are here to stay. With a 90% intermarriage rate (give or take) Japanese Canadians are producing hapa children at a prodigious rate. Attend a Japanese Canadian gathering or event and chances are you’ll see hapa everywhere, ranging in age from infants to mid-thirties."

http://www.canadiannikkei.ca/blog/what-is-hapa/


So.... back to Canada Day Eve....

With my two Hapa friends, we start talking about our "Hapa radars", that intuitive sense that immediately lets us know when we think that somebody we've never met before is Hapa.  We talk about the reactions that people have to them, when people realize they are neither Asian nor Caucasian, but both.  We talk about the first time when I realized they were Hapa.

We go down to Kitsilano Beach, finding a secluded spot, watch dusk settle in because we just missed the sunset after 10pm.  We talk more about Hapa-ness... the beingness of Hapa, about our Hapa friends, our Hapa cousins, Hapa nieces and nephews.



We talk about Hapa friends like Jeff Chiba Stearns who is an animator, and created the Hapa short animation film "What Are You Anyways?" We talk about Brandy Lien-Worrall who is the editor of "All Mixed Up"an anthology chap book of Hapa poetry.

Maxwell and Riding... two very un-Asian sounding names.  But they chatted on about how easy they can be mistaken for Asian or Caucasians in different settings.  Both are very active in the Asian-Canadian community.  Judy is presently a researcher for the Chinese Canadian Military Museum, and has done many academic and conference presentations because of her research on the Chinese disaspora and migration patterns.  Leanne has been studying Asian-Canadian history and is now active as co-president of Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop and the Asian Canadian Organization, which started as a student initiated project at UBC.

But both have family histories that are rooted in the racial turmoils of our country.  Judy's great-grandfather was a Member of Parliament that had pushed for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, while Leanne's grandparents and great-grandparents had been interned during WW2 because they were of Japanese ancestry.

They name me a "Honourary Hapa," because of the community building work I do such as Gung Haggis Fat Choy, which they both totally love, and attended earlier this year, back in January.  They both made fun of me, because I couldn't initially remember where they were sitting in the room of 430 people, even though one of the them was sitting at the head table with me along with the Vancouver.

And then it dawns on me.  Being Canadian is being Hapa... and being Hapa is being Canadian.  Canada celebrates it's cultural diversity, and nowhere is that diversity better celebrated than in the mixed race DNA enhanced ethnicities of it's peoples... even better if it all rolled up in one.

With BC celebrating it's 150th Anniversary this year in 2008, we are reminded that Simon Fraser came down the "Fraser River" with a crew of Metis (French-First Nations mix), and BC's first Governor James Douglas was born in Jamaica of mixed Scottish and Creole bloodlines.  BC's history is Hapa.... and most people don't even realize it.

So... sitting on English Bay... (Somewhere there must be an original First Nations Name that can be chosen as a "rename") we toasted to Canada's birthday eve, and our Hapa-ness.  And in our lively and wonderful conversations (which later moved to a Kitsilano area apartment), we had so much fun, we forgot to do a countdown to midnight until it was long past.


Here are some Hapa websites:

The Hapa Project

Eurasian Nation

MAVIN Foundation

Hapas.com

Meditating Bunny
Home page of Jeff Chiba Stearns, whose short animated film What Are You Anyways? deals with growing up hapa.

Halvsie
“For, by and about Half Japanese”



View Article  Geist Magazine celebrates Canada Day
Geist Magazine sent me a Canada Day Greeting via e-mail.

They have pulled all sorts of Canadiana type articles from their back catalogue.  In typical Canadian style, much of the humour is self-deprecating.  Is this how we define ourselves as Canadians?  At least we have a sense of humour... is how we can always be grateful that we are not Americans.  Waitaminit... Aren't most of the great American comics really Canadian?  Jim Carey, Dan Akroyd, William Shatner,

Here's a few of the highlights from GEIST:

http://www.geist.com/featured/canada-day

View Article  150 years of BC Stories: The Rev. Chan Family
CBC is helping to celebrate 150 years of BC history.  There is a website collecting family stories and pictures
Check it out: http://www.cbc.ca/bc/features/150/your-story.html

The 60th wedding anniversary of Rev. and Mrs. Chan Yu Tan (holding flower bouquet), August 15th 1934. On the far left, that is my grand mother Mabel Mar, holding up my mother, who is just one month shy of her 3rd birthday.

I have submitted a short story about my great-great-grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan:

Rev. Chan Yu Tan ministered to the Chinese pioneers who built the railroad, searched for gold, as well as became shop keepers and labourers in Vancouver Chinatown, Victoria Chinatown, and later Nanaimo and New Westminster, where he eventually retired.  The Chinese Methodist Church also helped teach English.  Rev. Chan Yu Tan emphasized learning Canadian ways, and it showed in his family.  His son Jack loved playing golf, and eventually  became the first Chinese Canadian to serve on jury duty.  His youngest son Luke became an actor in Hollywood.  The sons of daughters Rose and Kate -  Victor Wong, Daniel Lee, Howard Lee and Leonard Lee, enlisted in the Canadian armed forces during WW2,  eventually helped to gain Chinese-Canadians the vote in 1947, and later help organize the Chinese Canadian veterans associations.

Rev. Chan Yu Tan's great-grand daughter Rhonda Lee Larrabee became Chief of the Qayqayt First Nations Band, and subject of the NFB film "Tribe of One".  Another great-grand daughter Janice Wong, became an internationally known artist and author of the book CHOW from China to Canada. a memoir book of family history and recipes from her father's restaurant.

Our family history has been an integral part of Chinese-Canadian history, and I have recently addressed the cross-ethnic fusion of culture and marriage with my event Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a mixture of Robbie Burns and Chinese New Year.  There have been inter-ethnic marriages in every generation of our family - each of my maternal cousins have married non-Chinese.

I helped to tell the story of our family's 7 generational BC history, in the CBC documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy . http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/generations

This picture is at Rev. and Mrs. Chan Yu Tan's 60th wedding anniversary in New Westminster.  4 generations are included in this picture.
View Article  Vancouver Province: Vancouver to embrace Tartan Day on April 6
Here's the first public media acknowledgement that Tartan Day is officially happening in the City of Vancouver. Indeed, the city of Vancouver, province of BC, and country of Canada - all trace it's historical beginnings to Scottish pioneers. + Vancouver Province story: Vancouver's lads and lassies have until Sunday to press their kilts and dust off their sporans for the city's first official Tartan Day. Council will declare today that Vancouver is joining a long list of cities around the world that celebrate their Scottish roots on April 6.   more »
View Article  Rhonda Larrabee, chief of Qayqayt First Nations, in CTV's One Women Tribe
This is the CTV documentary about my cousin Rhonda Larrabee's struggle to resurrect Canada's smallest First Nations band the Qayqayt.......... Once upon a time the band flourished on the banks of the Fraser River. Then White settlers moved into their territories and renamed it New Westminster. The Qayqayt were put on a Reserve, but that was taken away from them too....... Rhonda's mother fled her homeland territories due to racism and shame. She came to Vancouver's Chinatown, where she met Rhonda's father. Rhonda grew up into her teenage years thinking she was Chinese. Then she discovered she was First Nations.    more »
View Article  Global TV News: Todd Wong and Gung Haggis dragon boat team interviewed for story on BC's cultural diversity

Watch GLOBAL NEWS on Tuesday Feb 26 -
6pm
TOMORROW!

Everybody knowns that BC's cultural diversity is one of the best things about living in BC.  Where else can you celebrate almost all the world's cultures worldly cuisines in a single city, go dragon boat racing, go to First Nations pow wows, enter a St. Patrick's Day parade, and learn bangra dancing?

Todd Wong (me)  was interviewed on Feb 17th for a Global TV story celebrating BC's 150 years.

I talk about cultural diversity in BC, and am seen with the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team, paddling in the background.

Cultural diversity is the topic, Todd and the Gung Haggis dragon boat team will represent it to Global TV viewers.  Our dragon boat team itself has a good mixture of not only Asian and Caucasian paddlers, but also one paddler with Iraqi heritage and 3 paddlers with both Asian/Caucasian DNA.

I also explain the history of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, which celebrates not only the Scottish and Chinese pioneer histories of BC, but also "everything inbetween and everything beyond."


From Global TV producer/reporter Elaine Yong:

We did a poll asking people what they thought were the things that made BC a world-class place, and people/culture/diversity was one of the top 10 responses.  To illustrate some of BC's amazing culture and diversity, I thought you would be a great person to profile.  But of course, we need some viz of you doing something, and since we missed the dinner, the dragon boating would be great, as well as another example of cultural diversity.  The story is scheduled to air Feb 26.




View Article  Eric on the Road podcast with Gung Haggis Fat Choy - hitting US pod cast waves
Back in January, Todd Wong was interviewed by Eric Model for "Conversations on the Road."  Model describes his  show as "journeys into the offbeat, off the beaten path, overlooked and the forgotten."

"And today most appropriately takes us into the category of offbeat.  And today's journey we go to Vancouver and we are discussing and event called 'Gung Haggis Fat Choy.'"

It's a very interesting 21 minute and 38 second pod cast with a stimulating conversation about the origins of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, early Chinese and Scottish pioneers in the late 1800's, racism, cultural traditions, inter-racial marriage, and the Canadian explorer Simon Fraser who was actually born in Vermont.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Gung Haggis Fat Choy - A Unique Scottish-Chinese Cultural Celebration

Posted by: emodel // Category: Uncategorized // 8:15 am

Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a cultural event originating from Vancouver, BC. The name Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a combination wordplay on Scottish and Chinese words: haggis is a traditional Scottish food and Gung Hay Fat Choy/Kung Hei Fat Choi s a traditional Cantonese greeting (in Mandarin it is pronounced Gong Xi Fa Cai) used during Chinese New Year. The event originated to mark the timely coincidence of the Scottish cultural celebration of Robert Burns Day (January 25) with the Chinese New Year, but has come to represent a celebration of combining cultures in untraditional ways.

In Vancouver, the event is characterized by music, poetry, and other performances around the city, culminating in a large banquet and party. This unique event has also inspired both a television performance special titled Gung Haggis Fat Choy, and the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Canadian Games, organized by the Recreation Department at Simon Fraser University.

In this conversation, we speak with event founder and spearhead Todd Wong. He tells us how it got started, and what it has come to represent around Vancouver and far beyond. 

icon for podpress  Gung Haggis Fat Choy [21:38m]:  Download
View Article  Banana Boys: everything you never wanted to know about Canadian born Asians
Theatre review: Banana Boys jabs and pokes fun at Asian-Canadian inferiority complex... 

Banana Boys
Firehall Arts Centre
directed by Donna Spencer
until February 9th.

Bananas are everywhere in Canada.  They are the Canadianized Asians that are yellow on the outside and white on the inside.  Terry Woo wrote the novel, and Leon Aureas turned it into the play being performed at the Firehall Arts Centre.

Everybody knows a Banana.  They straddle in between the Mother tongue culture trying to distance themselves from the FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) new immigrants who still speak with an accent, and they don't quite fit in with the Mainstream White-Canadian dominant culture - because everywhere they go, people still refer to them as Chinese because of their skin colour.

In a negative perspective, Bananas are sometimes accused of denying their racial and cultural heritage, by trying to be mainstream.  Former Governor General of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson, could be considered a Banana, even though she was born in Hong Kong and came to Canada at age three.  She doesn't even use her maiden name Poy anymore, keeping the name of her ex-husband political scientist Stephen Clarkson.

In a positive perspective, Bananas emphasize Canadian values, and the integration (or assimilation) of Chinese culture into becoming good Canadians of Chinese ancestry.  My friend David Wong calls himself a Banana, and like myself, is proud of his multigenerational Chinese-Canadian pioneer ancestry.

But in both the book and play, Banana Boys are college friends at the University of Waterloo.  They are called losers by one of their girlfriends.  And the most successful of them, is at odds with trying to distance himself from them and fit into the rising corporate class of new Chinese-Canadian immigrants.  They are 5 friends that each  represent many of the Asian-Canadian male stereotypes: unassertive romantically delusioned male, family values dominated number one son that goes to medical school, computer/math/tech geek, commerce faculty BMW or Accura Integra driving Chuppie (Chinese yuppie).

What is wrong with being a Banana?

Nothing... and everything!

The play opens with the 5 friends declaring their friendship in a prologue.  The real action starts when we discover that main character Rick Wong (Victor Mariano) has died by self-impalement of a piece of mirror into his heart.  The rest of the play explores each of the character's relationship to their "Banana-ness" and how they relate to each other.  Simon Hayakawa plays Michael Chow, the medical student who is in charge of documenting Rick Wong's life, struggling between following his bliss of becoming a writer or his family expectations of becoming a doctor.

It is a manic romp through many issues of being Asian-Canadian such as: dating white women or Chinese Women; following parental expectations for academic achievement; facing racial discrimination and cultural stereotypes; and trying to blend in with the mainstream or immigrant cultures.  Simon Hayama, Victor Mariano, Parnelli Parnes, and Vincent Tong, are all back for this return engagement after closing the 2007 Western Canada premiere with sold out shows.

The first act is fast paced with some brilliantly insightful and funny scenes. A scene addressing why Banana Boys are at the bottom of the relationship desirability ladder, begins as a mock battle scene with the boys playing soldiers fighting with machine guns, but transitions into a description of Venn diagrams explaining the intersections of Asian women with White men, but not White women or Asian women with Banana Boys.  It's a hilarious tribute to the mathematical geek stereotype of Asian males.

But this play goes beyond mere racial issues, it also tackles the tough issues of identity, drug addiction, friendship and learning to love oneself. 

Kudo's to Firehall Arts Centre for premiering this wonderful play to the West Coast, and having the strong belief in it to re-launch it a year later, in the wake of Firehall's remount of Urine Town.  Director Donna Spencer has tightened up the production, and the actors seem much more comfortable with the material.  The actors are all  amazing, as this play pushes them to over the top performances that exaggerate the issues to extremes.  Highlights include two of the actors dressing up with blonde wigs, as go-go dancing game show hostesses with Chinese accents, or dressed up in a big Sumo Wrestler outfit as Michael Chow's mother wrestling his personal ambitions against family expectations.  Metaphor is big in this play, and it hits you with big outrageous scenes and imagery.

When the play premiered last year, Terry Woo the Banana Boys author, came out for the opening and was happily amazed by the production.  The play had originally been workshopped in Toronto, but still translated well to Vancouver.  While the original material was written with a Chinese-Canadian specific culture in mind,
the actors come from a diverse Asian ancestry including Filipino, Chinese, Japanese and Hapa-Canadian.  The issues are universal enough to relate to all Asian-Canadian and Canadian immigrant community groups.

I was amazed by all the pop-cultural references and Asian Banana Boy cultural specifics such as dragon boat racing, driving Acura Integras, and drinking Coca-cola - which I do personally in my life.  As a 5th generational Chinese Canadian, am I that much of a Banana Boy?  Or are some of these issues relatable to all Canadians?  Judging from the laughter in the audience, lots of people, White or Asian, were enjoying the play.

View Article  Chinese-Canadians that inspired me in 2007
Last year in 2006, the Vancouver Sun published a list of 100 Influential Chinese-Canadians in B.C. in BC.... to much criticism - positive and negative.  I commented on my blog article: GungHaggisFatChoy :: Vancouver Sun: 100 Influential Chinese...

I am now working on my list of "Chinese-Canadians that inspired me in 2007"

I was inspired by seeing the name of Roy Mah, in the Vancouver Sun's list of people we lost in 2007, and shared the idea with my friend George Jung.   Rather than create a list of newsworthy or influential Chinese Canadians, we decided on CC's that inspired us.  This way there is NO official requirement or standards.  It is  very subjective and personal.

I also emailed some friends to create their own lists:  David Wong and Gabriel Yu have sent me replies.  David's list can be viewed on http://www.uglychinesecanadian.com

In no order, other than who came to mind first, who has crossed my path, and reviewing my blog www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com to remind myself who I wrote about in 2007.


Roy Mah - the founder of Chinatown News, was written about in the Vancouver Sun after celebrating his 90th birthday, as well as when the City of Vancouver declared July 12th Roy Mah Day, in recognition of his memorial service.  I have known Roy since I submitted an article back in the early '80's.  When he would make his regular trips to the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch, he would also wave to me sitting at the Information desk.
  
  
Thekla Lit
for her work with Alpha Canada, promoting the film Rape of Nanjing, and inviting media and public to meet Comfort Women survivors.  Gabriel says that a columnist on the Global Chinese Press has named Thekla the Chinese-Canadian of 2007, as she and her husband Joseph have been busy on these issues for a long decade.  I got to know Thekla when she joined the committee for Chinese Head Tax Redress campaign in the months preceding the 2006 federal election.  She is a very smart women, not afraid to say what she thinks.


James Erlandsen - the young Eurasian SFU Student needing a bone marrow donor as he fights leukemia (James was named honourary drummer for the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon boat team).  James reminded me so much of my own 1989 battle with cancer, even going to the same high school and university.  There have been ups and downs, and he still puts on a brave face.  I did a City TV interview with James, when James and I met for the first time.  It was James' cousin Aynsley who first contacted me about writing about James for my blog.
  
 
Tracey Hinder
- the 15 year old inaugural BC CanSpell champion, featured in the CBC documentary GENERATIONS: The Chan Legacy.  People constantly told me after watching the documentary that they  thought that my young cousin Tracey was great in it.  She was very inspiring for the future of Canada, especially with Tracey's Eurasian heritage, learning Mandarin and being involved with her school's multiculturalism club.  This summer Tracey started an e-newsletter titled "Becoming Green" that gives suggestions how to create a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.  I knew from the beginning that Tracey had to be in the documentary.  The documentary also featured family elders Victor Wong, Helen Lee, and Gary Lee, artist/author Janice Wong and myself.  Read my blog stories about Generations: The Chan Legacy
Three generations of the Chan family: Tracey Hinder (left), Betty Wong and Todd Wong look over their family's impressive legacy.Tracey Hinder, Betty Wong and Todd Wong re: Generations: The Chan Legacy

Henry Yu - UBC professor of History, chair and organizer of the Anniversaries for Change '07 events recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Anti-Asian Riots in Chinatown.  Henry has organized events at UBC and throughout Vancouver recognizing the impact on Vancouver made by the 1907 Anti-Asian riot in Vancouver Chinatown, the 1947 franchise for Chinese Canadians enabling them full citizenship rights, the new immigration act of 1967, and the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.  Henry has attended many Gung Haggis Fat Choy and Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop events over the past few years.  Henry always seems to have boundless enthusiasm and energy for all his projects.  But this past year was also significantly inspiring because he also became a cancer support person for his wife (see below).


Brandy Lien-Worrall - editor of Eating Stories: a Chinese Canadian and Aboriginal Potluck and All Mixed Up - a Hapa anthology.  It is easy to be impressed by all the writing and editing projects that Brandy is involved in.  I got to know Brandy better when I took the writing workshops sponsored by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC.  I truly learned what an incredible dynamo she is. She pushed us to write creatively, and from the heart.  And it was fun to have my stories and pictures published in Eating Stories. Read: Eating Stories, a Chinese Canadian and Aboriginal Potluck: book launch Nov 25th at Vancouver Museum.  But more important to recognize is that Brandy finished editing Eating Stories in between chemotherapy treatments, after she was diagnosed with cancer in the summer.  Soon she started up a cancer blog in addition to her poem a day blog, and her 12 other blogs...  Just like James Erlandsen, Brandy is Eurasian... and also reminds me of my own cancer experience. 


Larry Wong, Todd Wong, Shirley Chan, Janice Wong with editor Brandy Lien Worrall at the Eating Stories anthology official book launch at Vancouver Museum - photo Deb Martin


more to come....

Jen Sookfong Lee -

Margaret Gallagher

Karin Lee

Bill Wong

Vicki Wong

Joseph Wu

Tricia Collins

see part II
More Chjinese Canadians that Inpired me in 2007: part 2

Head Tax survivors Mrs. Der and Ralph Lee

Sid Tan - head tax activist

Bev Wong - community activist on bone marrow and blood donors

Douglas Jung building at 401 Burrard St. 

Lan Tung, leader of Orchid Ensemble, incredible musician and creator of Triaspora

Wesley Lowe - film maker, creator of I Am the Canadian Delegate - story of Douglas Jung

George Chow - city councilor

Raymond Louie - city councilor

Jenny Kwan - MLA

Jim Chu - 1st Vancouver police chief of Asian ancestry

Assaulted Fish - sketch comedy troupe

Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre VACT presented three productions in 2007, Cowboy VS Samaurai, Asian Comedy Night, and Bondage.

Twisting Fortunes duo - Charlie Cho and Grace Chin

Chinese Canadian veterans


View Article  Gung Haggis Fat Choy and Todd Wong cited in University paper: The Narcissism of Global Citizenry
Todd Wong and "Gung Haggis Fat Choy" are cited in a university student paper, from University of Toronto, I think.  Not so strange maybe because in 2007, I was written up for a grade 5 literacy text book, and contacted by a university professor researching for a book he is researching.

The paper is called The Narcissism of Global Citizenry by Remington Buyer, and asks "What does being Canadian mean?" in the abstract.

Check this out:

The increasing strength of divergent ethnic groups within Canada is doing more than inculcating multicultural tolerance, it is starting intercultural action.  One annual Vancouver event, Todd Wong's Gung Haggis Fat Choy party, celebrates the traditions of poetry reading associated with the traditions of Scottish Robbie Burns Day and merges it with the festivities of Chinese New Year's celebrations.  The result is a culturally-eclectic celebration of local and international artists performing musical numbers, reading poetry, socializing, and enjoying fusion Canadian cultures.  This particular event, far from representative of the entire Canadian inter-cultural community, is however an affirmation of that movement's existence....

Some critics claim that intercultural movements are nothing more than the lack of ethnicity, that the merging of Scottish and Chinese culture reveals little true dedication to either group.  Far beyond being academically questionable, this critic fails to grasp the holistic importance of Canadian interculturalism.  For a multicultural society to integrate new ethnic elements while preserving old ones, it must adapt, share and participate with others.  Canadian multiculturalism means more than tolerance, it means engagement.  Participation in dragon boat races, attendance at Bhangra festivities, taking the day off for the Queen's birthday day, or simply enjoying the Saturday and Sunday Sabbaths are all culturally important to different Canadian ethnic groups.

Remington Buyer, The Narcissism of Global Citizenry page 7-8
 
View Article  Lewis Perinbam was an outstanding Canadian - he passed away last week
There are some people who grace your life fleetingly, and you wished you had known them better. I first met Lewis Perinbam 3 years ago when I joined the Canadian Club Vancouver board of directors. Lewis Perinbam was an incredible Canadian and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Last week, he passed away on December 12th. Few people can have the impact he had, as through his lifetime he helped develop many of Canada's international development programs such as CIDA, CUSO, World University Service of Canada, UNESCO as well as the Commonwealth of Learning. I am simply amazed at all the tributes I am finding in the media and on the internet.   more »
View Article  Theatre Review: The Dunsmuirs is a well-acted immigrant rags-to-riches story with a healthy dose of Scots-Canadian culture
The Dunsmuirs: Alone at the Edge Oct 5-20, 2007 Presentation House Theatre 333 Chesterfield Ave. North Vancouver This is a wonderfully interesting play about one of Canada's most controversial and rags-to-richest Scots-Canadian Robert Dunsmuir. The coal miner who became a coal baron then Premier and Lt. Governor of the province while he was employing Asian minors as lower paid scab labourers in his Nanaimo/Cumberland mines.   more »
View Article  It's the 100th anniversary today of the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots
It's the 100th anniversary today of the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots

It is known in Chinese-Canadian stories as "The Night the White Boys Played." It was a time when anti-asian sentiment in Vancouver raised to a pitch that resulted in broken windows, smashed storefronts, and physical violence in Vancouver's Chinatown.  The angry mob also went to Japantown - but citizens there had heard about the attack on Chinatown and had prepared themselves as they repelled the invaders.

A lot has changed in Vancouver's last 100 years.  Many Asians and the Caucasians have met, fell in love and had babies.  In my family, the 7th generation of Rev. Chan Yu Tan is only 1/4 Chinese.  The family wing that married First Nations produced my mom's cousin Rhonda Larrabee, now Chief of the Qayqayt Band (New Westminster). 

Chinese and Japanese, First Nations and South Asians all have as much right to being Canadian as Irish, Scottish, French, English and Ukranians.  All have contributed many ways to help build this nations called Canada.  It was remarkable to watch the recent Generations documentary series on CBC Newsworld as 6 families from across Canada had their family stories told and intertwined with Canadian history.  I was involved with the episode The Chan Legacy which told the story of my great-great grandfather's 1896 arrival in Victoria BC, and how subsequent generations have contributed community service to Canada, and helped others integrate into Canadian society.

Check out the www.Anniversaries07.ca website

REFRACT: who we are
The Vancouver of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Anniversaries is a Vancouver-based consortium of Asian-Canadian institutions and organizations marking 2007 as an anniversary year in the search for justice and a multicultural Canada.

RECORD: what we're about

1907, 1947, 1967, and 1997 represent watershed moments in the story of Asian migrants in Canada. From the anti-Asian riots of 1907, to the hard-won franchise of �47 and new immigration act of �67 through the handover of Hong Kong a decade ago, Anniversaries is dedicated to claiming these transformative markers of struggle and triumph.

RECONCILE: Join Anniversaries of Change ...

In 2007 we invite you to join Anniversaries of Change as together we begin writing the next chapter in the evolving story of Transpacific Canada.

Share the moment by coming to the Reconciliation Dinner on September 7 at Floata Restaurant, Vancouver



Check out all the media action the Anniversaries of Change got this week! And listen to CBC's Early Edition this week (Tuesday and Wednesday mornings) for more interviews.

The Georgia Straight
http://www.straight.com/article-107637/commemorating-a-race-riot

The Courier
http://www.canada.com/vancouvercourier/news/story.html?id=27e737a2-acbb-4671-a6c1-5f39adaee1d8&k=77221

The Sun (and click on the link on the right under "Related Links" for a video of additional coverage)
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ada365e9-fba9-427e-8829-3c860bca9a81&k=27005
View Article  Redress Express comes to Centre A - bringing art and examination about Canada's racist past
What is the Redress Express, and what does it have to do with racism? 2007 is a significant year for anniversaries in Asian-Canadian history: 1907 - 100 year anniversary of the Chinatown riots by the Anti-Asiatic League 1947 - the end of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the beginning of franchise rights including voting for Canadians of Chinese ancestry. ~~~~~~~~~~ - Sid Chow Tan is now an "Artist" after his brief 5 minute talk & 10 minute video presentatsion of the journey of Head Tax Redress; Hank Bull (curator plus) stated that "If Sid's video isn't art, then I don't know what is!" - Victor Wong had an excellent talk on Head Tax & Redress titled "True Grits, Kwan Gung and Luck: The Inside Stories of the Head Tax Redress Campaign"   more »
View Article  Generations: 100 Years in Alberta - on CBC Newsworld
Generations: 100 Years in Alberta - on CBC Newsworld


  7:00 p.m PST. Generations: 100 Years in Alberta
- Marking the Alberta centennial through the story of a Lebanese immigrant family.
Generations: 100 Years in Alberta

  10:00 p.m.
PST
Generations: 100 Years in Alberta
- Marking the Alberta centennial through the story of a Lebanese immigrant family.
Generations: 100 Years in Alberta

It's Wednesday... and time to start another episode of CBC's new documentary series of Canadian history told through the experiences of a family's generations.  100 Years in Alberta is the 5th episode of this incredible series which started with my own family history - The Chan Legacy which began when Rev. Chan Yu Tan arrived in Canada in 1896.

You may have heard of CBC's hit show "Little Mosque on the Prairie," a comedy about an inter-racial Muslim couple raising their inter-racial daughter in a small prairie town, where the new town doctor is a nice Muslim boy from Toronto.  That was fictional - Generations: 100 Years in Alberta is the real thing.

Check out the story from the www.cbc.ca/documentaries/generations website.

August 1, 10 pm ET/PT, August 5, 10 am ET, August 26, 7 pm ET

The Hamdon/Shaben family dates to the turn of the last century when two Lebanese peddlers came to Alberta to seek a better life. Ali Hamdon became a fur trader in Fort Chipewyan. Saleem Shaben opened a general store in Endiang. Decades later, their two families became one through a marriage, and a mosque.

The Hamdons
Hilwie and Ali Hamdon

Hilwie Hamdon, Ali Hamdon's wife, found it difficult to raise her children as Muslims in small town where no others practiced their faith. So, eventually, the family moved to Edmonton, and in the midst of the Great Depression, Hilwie helped raise money from Muslims all over Alberta and Saskatchewan, to build Canada's first mosque, in Edmonton in 1938. The Shaben family, attracted by the mosque, also moved to Edmonton, and when Saleem Shaben's granddaughter married Ali Hamdon's son the families became relatives and business partners. Larry Shaben, Saleem's grandson, developed an interest in politics and became the first Muslim cabinet minister in Canada when he was sworn into the government of Peter Lougheed.

Today, the great grandchildren of those Muslim pioneers are contributing in their own way to building a better Alberta and a better world.

Produced and narrated by Jim MacQuarrie.