What to expect at the Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2007 Dinner

The Arrival

Arrive Early:  The doors will open by 5:15 pm. All seating is reserved, and all tables are placed in the order that they were ordered (except for special circumstances such as a major sponsor hint hint).  We find this is the most fair, and it encourages people to buy their tickets earlier to ensure a table closer to the stage.  We expect a rush just prior to the posted 5:30pm 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.  Ohhh.... but we might be having a special sponsor for drinks.  We're working on it.

The premium tables will have two bottles of wine on each table.  This is the reward for purchasing tables closer to the stage and paying $10 more each.  This also means that you don't have to stand in line for your first drink.

Buy Your Raffle Tickets: We have some great door and raffle prizes lined up.  Lots of books (being the writers we are), gift certificates and theatre tickets + other surprises.

Please buy raffle tickets... this is how we generate our fundraising.  We purposely keep our admission costs low to $60 for advance regular seats so that they are affordable and the dinner can be attended by more people.  Children's tickets are subsidized so that we can include them in the audience and be an inclusive family for the evening.

This dinner is the primary fundraising event for Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dragon Boat team.  Since 2001, we have also given funds to Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop, publishers of RicePaper Magazine. The Gung Haggis team continues to promote multiculturalism through dragon boat paddling events, and puts a dragon boat float each year in the Vancouver St. Patrick's Day Parade.  Rice Paper Magazine highlights creative Asian Canadians - especially in the arts and culture.

Last year, we added the Save Kogawa House committee as a beneficiary for the event, because I felt it was important to save Joy Kogawa's childhood home from demolition.  I have been working on the committee, and I am pleased that The Land Conservancy has stepped in to partner with us to save Kogawa House and turn it into a National literary landmark and treasure for all Canadians.  Now that the house is saved, more money is still needed to restore it to the 1942 qualities when Joy and her family were forced to leave it, as well as create an endowment for future programming.

Please support our missions of supporting and developing emerging writers, organizing reading events, and to spread multiculturalism through dragon boat racing - or come join our teams!

The FOOD

This year haggis dim sum appetizers will be on a long buffet table - available at 5:30 pm.  This is going to be culinarily exciting.  We have featured deep-fried haggis won ton since 2004.  In 2005 we introduced haggis spring rolls.  On City Cooks with host Simi Sara, we also introduced haggis stuffed tofu. 

6:30 pm Dinner event begins. People are seated, and the Piping in of the musicians and hosts begins.  We will lead a singalong of Scotland the Brave and give a good welcome to our guests, only then will the dinner courses appear.  You want to eat, you have to sing for your supper! (which should appear by 6:45 pm).

From then on... a new dish will appear every 10 to 15 minutes - quickly followed by one of our co-hosts introducing a poet or musical performer.  Serving 50 tables within 5 minutes, might not work completely, so please be patient.  We will encourage our guests and especially the waiters to be quiet while the performers are on stage. Then for the 5 minute intermissions, everybody can talk and make noise before they have to be quiet for the performers again.

This year's dinner show will emphasize the show over the dinner.  In past years, we have always tried to alternate food dishes with performances.  But with the high quality of artists, we need to highlight them... so this year... the show takes priority!

The Performances

Expect the unexpected: 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 be known that we have an incredible array of talent for the evening.

Priya Ramu, CBC Radio host for "On The Coast" will be co-host with me for the evening.  We have already created a mini-kilt for Priya and she is looking forward to the event.

We welcome the return of Silk Road Music and Heather Pawsey to the Gung Haggis program.  Qiu Xia and Andre bring their musical fusion performed on pipa and classical guitar.  Opera soprano Heather Pawsey will perform in Mandarin and a special suprise...

Joe McDonald and his celtic-fusion band Brave Waves is again our "house band." We always delight in having Joe and his bagpipes.  This year Joe and the band will deliver a Canadian surprise with a multicultural twist.

Author Lensey Namioka, author of the young adult novel "Half and Half" will introduce us to the trials of Fiona Cheng growing up half-Scottish and half-Chinese in Seattle.  Her brother is red-headed and prefers martial arts to highland dancing, and she really really would love to wear his kilt and dance - but her parents and her grandparents would prefer her to wear a chinese dress to go with her black hair.

No Luck Club - the instrumental hip hop band, recently returned from a cross-Canada tour will be providing "ambient groove music" during our reception.  But I think they might even get in on our version of "The Haggis Rap."

Our non-traditional reading of the "Address to the Haggis" is always a crowd pleaser.  But this year, audience members will be reading a different Burns poem to tie their tongues around the gaelic tinged words.  Will it be "A Man's A Man for All That," "To a Mouse," My Luv is Like a Red Red Rose," or maybe even "Tam O-Shanter?"

I hand-pick members of the audience to join us on stage to read a verse.  Past participants have included former federal Multicultural Secretary of State Raymond Chow, Qayqayt (New Westminster) First Nations Chief Rhonda Larrabee, , a descendent of Robert the Bruce, a doctor from White Horse, a UBC student from Scotland, somebody doing a vocal impression of Sean Connery.  Last year we invited Faye Leung, Kelly Ip, Jim Harris (then national leader of the Green Party) and NDP federal candidates Ian Waddell and Mary-Woo Sims - both dressed in their Scottish and Chinese finest.

Who will it be for 2007?  We leave it up until the evening to decide.

The evening will wrap up somewhere between 9:00 and 9:30 pm, then we will socialize further until 10pm.  People will leave with smiles on their faces and say to each other, "Very Canadian,"  "Only in Vancouver could something like this happen," or "I'm telling my friends."