Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2004 Dinner
Arrive Early: The doors will open at 5:30pm. We expect a rush just prior to the posted 6:00pm reception time. This is the time to go to the bar and get your dram of Glenfiddich or pint of McEwan's Lager - specially ordered for tonight's dinner.
Buy Your Raffle Tickets: We have some great door and raffle prizes lined up. Lots of books (being the writers we be), gift certificates and theatre tickets. Most exciting are the tickets for opening night of Terracotta Warriors at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, opening night tickets for The Plum Tree - directed by Adrienne Wong (who will also co-host GHFC).
This dinner is the primary fundraising event for both the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop and the Gung Haggis Dragon Boat Team. We have assembled some wonderful prizes, to help raise funds to support our missions of supporting and developing emerging writers, organizing reading events, and to spread multiculturalism through dragon boat racing.
The first appetizer dish will appear once people are seated, quickly followed by the Piping in of the musicians and hosts. We will lead a singalong of Scotland the Brave and give good welcome to our guests. I will read my new opening poem Gung Haggis Fat Choy.
From then on... a new dish will appear every 15 minutes - quickly followed by one of our co-hosts introducing a poet or musical performer. I don't want to give anything away right now as I prefer the evening to unfold with a sense of surprise and wonderment. But let it do be known that we have an incredible array of talent for each of our two nights. This includes bagpiper Joe McDonald with his fusion band Brave Waves and Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault from Silk Road Music - both of these groups appear in the CBC tv special.
Co-hosts with me for Saturday evening are Adrienne Wong and Margaret Gallagher. For Sunday, we have Adrienne and Heather Pawsey. On Saturday, 13 year old violinist Alex Sachs performs, followed later by Vancouver Opera concert master Mark Ferris - who will debut original compositions. On Sunday soprano Heather Pawsey will perform her favorite scottish songs, along with a song or two in Mandarin.
On both nights we have award winning teen-aged Highland Dancers Vincent and Cameron Collins, as well a Burns afficianado Neil Gray, who is also featured in the CBC tv performance special.
Our non-traditional reading of the "Address to the Haggis" is always a crowd pleaser. I hand-pick members of the audience to join us on stage to read a verse. Past participants have included former federal Secretary of State Raymond Chow, Qayqayt (New Westminster) First Nations Chief Rhonda Larrabee, UBC Director of the Chan Centre Dr. Sid Katz.
The evening will wrap up somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00pm. People will leave with smiles on their faces and say to each other, "Only in Canada, could something like this happen."
