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


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.

"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.

Read the entire article at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080712.ALPURDY12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/

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?

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.

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:

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”

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

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.

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 »

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 »

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."



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.

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

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. 

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.

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
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

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:

 

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 »

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 »

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

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 »

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

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.

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.

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.