Author Sharon Butala mesmerized the packed audience at historic Joy Kogawa House on Friday night.  The Order of Canada author talked how she helped established a writer in residence program at Wallace Stegner's childhood home in Eastend, Saskatchewan. 

Butala is giving a weekend writing workshop about memoir writing at Kogawa House, marking the start of turning the historic literary landmark into a true writers-in-residence program for the City of Vancouver and the Canadian literary and writing community.

Butala read from her Governor General award nominated memoir book, The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature, and her new book Lilac Moon: Dreaming of the Real West

She also talked about the CBC Fifth Estate documentary she inspired and was a part of: CBC: The fifth estate - Death of A Beauty Queen - which investigated the unsolved 1963 murder of Butala's former high school friend.

She answered a few questions, some about her writing, and some about how she helped create a writers-in-residence program in Eastend SK.  Then afterwards, she signed copies of her books and chatted with the audience members.

For this past month, Butala has been living as a guest at Joy Kogawa's Vancouver appartment, while Kogawa lives in her primary residence in Toronto.  On Feb 3rd, Butala attended the Vancouver opera production "Voices of the Pacific Rim" with members of the Joy Kogawa House Society, and was introduced to some of the singers who had performed  the Naomi's Road opera, based on the children's novel by Joy Kogawa.

Sharon Butala and Historic Joy Kogawa House seem like a perfect fit.  This house where the 6 year old Joy Kogawa grew up in, and remembered through years of internment during WW2, and for years afterwards became realized in a memoir of sorts, the award winning novel Obasan.  Butala and her husband Peter, are also nationally recognized conservationists.  In 1996, they donated their 13,100-acre (5,300 ha) ranch near Eastend to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) to establish The Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Preserve (OMB).  It was in 2006, that Joy Kogawa House was purchased by The Land Conservancy of BC, to become Vancouver's first literary and historical landmark.

As a member of the Joy Kogawa House Society, I know that we are deeply appreciative of Sharon's work to help us develop a writer's-in-residence program for Historic Joy Kogawa house.  We thank Sharon for her wonderful spirit and commitment to our project.

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.

It's Chinese New Year week....

here are some FUN events this week.... after recovery from Gung Haggis Fat Choy Chinese Robbie Burns Dinner recovery....

Tuesday February 5, 2008 - 6:00 PM

CITY COOKS with Simi Sara

Channel 13 in Metro Vancouver
Our cooking dragon boat chef Dan Seto (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of B.C.)

1. Lotus Root Soup
2. Steamed Pork with Salt Fish
3. Green Beans with Fooyi Bean Cake

Check out
TUESDAY to Saturday FEB 5 - 9th
BANANA BOYS
Firehall Theatre
The fun play by Leon Aureas, based on the Terry Woo novel
Back from a hit run last year... manic comedy and Asian identity... or Asian confusion.

THURSDAY Feb 7
CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY
- Kilts Night at Doolin's Irish Pub
FREE pint of Guinness if you wear a kilt.
8:00pm - Raphael to greet you.
Hockey game starts a 7:00 pm - expect music by Halifax Wharf Rats to begin afterwards around 9:30

FRIDAY Feb 7 - 16
THE QUICKIE
- Playwrights theatre centre on Granville Island
- this is the play excerpted at Gung Haggis dinner
- this is by the same group that did Twisting Fortunes last year

purchase tickets online via PayPal at www.scriptingaloud.ca/quickie.
but see them:

Friday, February 15 concert of DEAD Serious 
7:30 p.m. at Vancouver Memorial Services and Crematorium / Hamilton-Harron Funeral 
Home, 5390 Fraser Street) will TAKE PLACE AS SCHEDULED.  
If you would like to make reservations, 
please call 604-325-7441.