It was Saturday night in Vancouver's East End, and the Parade of Lost Souls was taking place throughout Grandview Park, the Britannia Oval, along Commercial Drive and throughout the immediate neighborhood. We were a band of dragon boat friends from the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team. Some of us had adopted the theme of angel wings to coincide with a "life-affirming" take on the "Celebration of Life" theme for the event organized by the Public Dreams Society.    more »

My cousin Valerie Wong is having a Vancouver book launch this weekend. It is an independently published work of fiction. JADE RUBIES - book launch Sunday, October 28th,   more »

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: What if Led Zeppelin went bluegrass?

I grew up on Led Zeppellin Music... particularly LZ IV with Stairway to Heaven, Black Dog and Rock and Roll.  Over the last 10 years, I have listened to a lot of Alison Krauss.  I saw her performance in Vancouver two years ago with Union Station, and also her performance with the "Down From the Mountain" tour of the music and musicians from the movie soundtrack for "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" 

But Robert Plant, lead singer for Led Zeppellin with Alison Krauss, and produced by T-Bone Burnett?  Did somebody slip some magic mushrooms into the sweet potatoe pie?

This is definitely crossing musical boundaries, as well as both sides of the Atlantic.  Lots of blues and rockabilly riffs here.  I have been listening to it everyday since it was released on Tuesday Oct 23.  Check out this YouTube video:

YouTube - Alison Krauss and Robert Plant Duet for ...

A look at the making of Raising Sand, a duet collaboration ...
8 min -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KF4dKq-6I

Review:  Gravity astounds the senses - Tricia Collins takes the audience on a journey into her past and across two oceans



Gravity
Chapel Arts
304 Dunley St.
Oct 25 - Nov 3, 2007

It seems like a very Vancouver thing to be from somewhere else, to live in two cultures, and to share your family story, and to do it artistically.  But Tricia Collins is all of this and more.  Both she and her self-penned one-woman theatrical show Gravity are "very Vancouver."

Tricia Collins is hapa.  Her mother's family came from Guyana, and from China before that.  Tricia is an actor, a  writer and an amazing performer/story teller.  She also does acrobatic work while hanging suspended from cloth draping... and speaking in a lucious juicy Caribbean accent.  This is one smart talented agile woman who can capture your attention.... and hold it for a long, long time.Gravity is a multi-media theatrical work based on similarities in her family history.  But Collins takes it much much further.  While images of knitting or maps are projected onto the wall, Collins tells the multi-generational story of 4 women.  The stories travel through and co-exist in time... and fall through time. 

When you first walk into Chapel Arts, on Dunlevy and Cordova, it feels different.  The last time I was in the building had been for the funeral of my grandmother's brother, at least 15 years ago.  The former Armstrong Funeral Home has now been converted to an arts centre.  My grand-uncle Henry had worked for many years at Armstrong, and the building was packed to over flowing.  He had been a well-known community figure and had played and important role of helping to bring up his 13 younger brothers and sisters.  They were all born in Canada, grandchildren of Rev. Chan Yu Tan. 

It's fitting that I now back in this building where I am attending a theatre work based on the family history of Tricia Collins.  Hers is also a story about the Chinese diaspora coming to Canada.  But her story comes by way of Guyana on the Caribbean coast of South America, where the Chinese worked as replacement labourers after the African slaves had been set free.

The chapel has now been turned into a black box theatre room with chairs set up on two sides of the room.
White sand is in the middle of the stage floor, with small lights in a large circle.  Theatrical fog hovers over the floor, as fish netting hangs beside one wall, and a large wooden box is in the back corner.  Calypso music plays faintly in the background.   I got the feeling that something special is going to happen.

The house lights dim and Tricia Collins walks to the centre of the stage floor.  She explains to the audience that her name is Maya, and she is working on her Ph.D. thesis and trying to help counter the flooding in her family's ancestral home of Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana.  A screen projection shows on the wall her project, and a map of Guyana, showing its location between Venezuela and Suriname.  A voice whispers.... words appear on the screen... and the storytelling magic begins.

Tricia Collins has created a riveting piece of work that interweaves the tale of her mother, her Granny Ling, and her mother before her, who was kidnapped from China and sold in Guyana, after being shipped in a crate across the ocean.  We learn about the hopes and dreams of each woman, and how they deal with the challenges that they find themselves in. Collins plays each of the women, as she simultaneously tells stories about them, in an attempt to unravel the mystery that binds them together, while pulling them apart.

Gravity is what creates the dynamic tension as Collins tells her story as she twists around, suspended in the cloth drapes. It is a unique visual device that I am more accustomed to seeing in Chinese acrobatic shows, modern dance or Cirque Du Soleil.  Collins moves smoothly, her foot deftly wrapping the cloth around her calves or ankles, or her hands wrapping the cloth into a bundle that becomes a baby as she gently rocks it.

The lighting design by James Proudfoot, video and installation by Cindy Mochizuki, stage management by David Kerr, and direction by Maiko Bae Yamamoto are fantastic.

"This was the dream team," Yamamoto repeated several times during the opening night reception as we talked about the production. "They created all lighting and projections specifically for this space.  James just lets the space talk to him and tell him what it needs."

Gravity has been developed in several stages, and this is it's most complete.  At times Collin's character Maya interacts directly with the audience, talking as if presenting a lecture or at point - touching the arm of an audience member.  Other times, she is acting out scenes while telling her stories, oblivious to the audience.  Sound, projection, lighting, and Collin's expressions, voices and movements complement each other on cue. This is an exciting production and well worth seeing, and telling your friends.

Harry Aoki at St. John's College, UBC, The Heart of the City Festival, Gravity (world premiere) @ Chapel Arts, Silk Road Music (Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault) @ Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens   more »

How I spent my summer and fall during the Vancouver library strike...What did I do on the picket line?

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1) July 26th Strike begins. 2) Day 9 - I got to know my co-workers better such as Roseanne and strike captain Peter deGroot. 3) I learned tai-chi taught by Tim Firth. 4) August 4- I walked with our union in the Pride parade. 5) I bring my accordion down to the picket line. 6a) Day 15 We share food for our 1st potluck.  6b) Playing Trivial Pursuit with Matt and Rachel

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 7) Knitting hats for the homeless - I take pictures of my co-workers Diana and Tanya. 8) Day 16 We go to City Hall for a rally. 9)  I played music with my co-worker Ross Bliss 10) Day 20 - I invited author Terry Glavin to speak. 11) Dr. Fred Bass, former City councillor gave words of support. 12) We engage the public - Donald works in the Federal Building, and he thanked me for work I did over a year ago on the information desk directing him to head tax documentation. 12b) I hang with fellow library working dragon boat paddlers Harvey and Connie.

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13) August 24, I invite Stan Persky to read.  14/15) We meet and welcome CUPE 15 members.  16) Aug 21, Day 34 I invite writer Tom Sandborn to come speak. 17) We initiate "Grandeur on Georgia" and wave to cars on Georgia St. 18) We initiate "Flying pickets" and go picket at different library sites spending 1 hr at each branch such as Hastings.

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19) Day 35 - I invite World Poetry to come read.  20) Aug 22 I invite Ellen Woodsworth, former city councillor to give words of support.  21) Globe & Mail reporter Laura Drake writes a story featuring James Gemmil and me. 22) Aug 23 Library workers picket with pizzazz appears in Globe & Mail.  24) Aug 23  I invite Chuck Davis to come speak. 24) We initiate "Grandeur on Georgia" with CUPE 15 Vancouver inside workers at Vancouver Playhouse/Q.E. Theatre.

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25) I decide to wear lots of Hawaiian shirts on the picket line. 26) Aug 24 I invite Stan Persky to come read.  27) Aug 27 I invite Daniel Gawthrop to come read.  28)  We go to City Hall for another rally.  29) Ellen Woodsworth introduces me to other union and community organizers.  30) I introduced city councillor Raymond Louie to my fellow library workers. 30b This picture of me, my accordion, picket captain Alexis Greenwood and city librarian Paul Whitney made it into the Georgia Straight article Boss and union tell different tales.
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31) Aug 30 - I invite Hiromi Goto to come read.  32) Aug 30 I hurt my back lifting a flat of water and have to use a wheelie-walker.  33) Sep 6- I invite poet Rita Wong to come read.  34) Sep 7 I invite Vancouver poet laureate George McWhirter to come read. 35/36) The media comes to film us doing "the wave" with our strike signs.

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37) I have to play accordion sitting down now.  38) Sep 14 CUPE 15's Theatre show comes to Library Square.  39) I take them to CBC studios and find somebody from the newsroom.  40) We are filmed for the evening news. 41) Sep 27  Back to playing accordion for Grandeur on Georgia. 42) Sep 29 - I emcee the inaugural music cabaret for Vancouver District Labour Council, organized by Earle Peach, and funds raised are giving to CUPE 391, by Bill Saunders VDLC president.

October 21st, we vote 71% to accept new contract with changes to the mediator's recommendations.
October 24, we are back working at the library.
July 26 to Oct 21st - 87 days of strike action.
The first ever strike in CUPE 391's 77 years of union history.

Read Todd's stories about theLibrary Strike

See Todd's pictures at Todd Wong's Flickr site                                   

The historic first library strike is now over. On Friday CUPE 391 voted 71.4% to accept the new changes in latest contract proposal with their employer the Vancouver Public Library. The Library board ratified the contract on Saturday morning. And just like that... all the picket signs were finally officially down.    more »

The Festival runs until Sunday. And many writers from around the world and from different cultures are featured including Helen Oyeyemi, Kiran Desai, On Friday morning I listened to CBC Radio's Sheila Rogers interview with Jen Sookfong Lee as they talked about Lee's debut novel The End of East, which is partly set in Vancouver's Chinatown. Lee is one of the many featured writers at the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival this week. She is featured in the program Fresh Faces in Fiction on Friday and GAWK on Thursday night.   more »

Accordions, multiculturalism and the evolutionary psychology of Charles Crawford.

I spent 5 years studying psychology up at Simon Fraser and I never took a course with Charles Crawford, known as one of the leading figures in evolutionary psychology. 

I was more interested in the relationship of psychology and health, so I took courses in health psychology, psychology of emotions, behavioral methods, mental health.  I was interested in humanistic and transpersonal psychology, so I took history of psychology, social psychology and I also did my own directed studies.

So I never learned that Charles Crawford played accordion. 

I learned that James Marcia played trombone, because I took his upper division course on Issues in Social Psychology which that year concentrated on Mythology.  Reading Joseph Campbell was great...  I even brought my accordion into class one time, when we did a presentation about creation myths.  I played J.S. Bach's Toccata in D Minor... because for me, it's all about the creative process.
Check out this story by Charles Crawford.
http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/sfu_news/regular_features/comment11270301.htm

Charles discusses multiculturalism,  the brain drain and the accordion.  He inter-relates these seemingly different topics when the last accordion teacher registered with the BC Music Teachers Association leaves Vancouver for more work in the US. 

Charles cites the demise of the Bordignon accordion factory in Vancouver (formerly on Hastings St.) while in Seattle, the Petosa Accordions flourised.  Crawford writes:

I can certainly attest to Seattle's vibrant accordion scene.  When I was still entering accordion music competitions, my teacher would always enter us in the local Vancouver Kiwanis and Coquitlam music festivals.  As numbers became smaller for these events, we would enter the North West Accordion Teachers Music Festival in Seattle.  It was huge.  You could enter your age class, and open division, and also the King or Queen division.  One year I played the 17 page Manhattan Concerto in my bid to become "King of the Festival."


a) Bagpiper Joe McDonald (in Lion mask) and Todd Wong in 2005 rehearsal for Gung Haggis Fat Choy; b) Todd Wong filmed by CBC camera crew for the CBC documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy at the open house event for Joy Kogawa House; c) Todd Wong and his accordion on the picket line during the recent CUPE 391 Vancouver library workers strike d) Gypsy jazz guitarist Ross Bliss and accordionist Todd Wong trade licks for versions of Sweet Georgia Brown and O Solo Mio.

Maybe Charles Crawford and I will have to get together.  I have a Titano free bass acordion.  My repetoire includes Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Orpheus in the Underworld Overture, Puccini's Un Bel Dei from Madame Butterfly, and Scott Joplin's The Entertainer.

Maybe I will have to play some celtic jigs and reels.  I have played jazz, and folk tunes with Japanese-Canadian musicologist Harry Aoki.  I have played with gypsy jazz guitarist Ross Bliss.  I have even played the Chinese traditional song "Jasmine Flower (Mo-li Hua) on accordion for CBC radio while my friend soprano Heather Pawsey sang in mandarin Chinese. 

Vancouver library workers voted today (Friday) to accept new changes to a contract proposal that included most of the Brian Foley mediator recommendations. The vote was 71.4% in favour of the new contract. (update) The Vancouver Public Library board ratified the agreement today, on Saturday morning. The union meeting started at 10:30 am on Friday, and with questions went 15 minutes past the 12 noon starting time that had been designated for voting to start. Voting went on until 6pm.   more »

Bill Tieleman has written Vancouver newspaper columnists, editorials get facts wrong in trash talking CUPE Vancouver workers over strike and exposes the lapses of journalists who succumbed to all the "strike myths" propagated by Mayor Sam, the City and it's media spin doctors. Thieleman writes: There is a lot of garbage left around town from the end of the Vancouver city workers' strike - too bad so much of it was printed in newspapers. Those who insist on trash-talking workers should at least get their facts straight, but apparently that's asking too much. Or maybe some columnists are simply suffering amnesia about why and when the strike got "personalized," strangely forgetting Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's lead role.   more »

It's been hard for my fellow library workers on the picket line. This is our first strike in the library worker union's 77 years of history. Who would have predicted a strike would have gone on this long? Well people at city hall did... City spokesman Jerry Dobrovolny said back on August 20th, "Typical city strikes tend to be about six to eight weeks." But this 2007 strike was exacerbated by the city bargaining tactics of constant stonewalling and delay and walking away from the bargaining table from December through the spring, through the summer and into the fall. Today there's still a media blackout in effect. So why is the Vancouver Sun publishing this story Striking library workers, city reach tentative deal on their website? Who told them the information?   more »

Joy Kogawa, author of Obasan, has written A Place of Compassion for her submission to the Dream Vancouver conference and website, organized by Think City. While Joy will not be attending the conference, I will be as one of the directors of the Joy Kogawa House Society. Dream Vancouver is an all-day conference which will take participants from their dreams about Vancouver to a possible agenda for change. The conference will be facilitated by Bliss Browne, internationally-renowned speaker and president of Imagine Chicago. Former City of Vancouver Co-Director of Current Planning Larry Beasley is key note speaker. Ms. Browne will then facilitate a discussion-based session which will take participants through a series of questions designed to bring them to a collective vision of what the city could be.    more »

It's definitely fall when you can jump into a huge pile of leaves, We've had some cold weather for awhile... I've paddled and picketed through the recent rain. But this weekend, the weather warmed up, and all the leaves have started falling on the ground. I started my Sunday off with a Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team practice....We walked around Kits Beach,    more »

Shh.... Salt Tasting Room is a Vancouver secret


Todd Wong hold up his glass at the Salt Tasting Room, with the daily menu chalkboard behind on the wall. - photo Judy Maxwell

Salt Tasting Room

Back in early September the Vancouver Sun published Vancouver slurp-and-swirl a top-five secret - it was a story about the results of a  Travelocity.ca poll which asked members for their top Canadian local secrets.  I couldn't find an entry about Salt Tasting Room - but I did find a link for British Columbia local secrets.

Even though I hadn't been to the Salt Tasting Room yet, I felt that I was already in on the secret because I had a gift certificate for the restaurant.  It had been sitting on the shelf since April 21st when I won the door prize at the BC Book Prize soiree event. (read my  my article).

I finally went last Sunday.  It was a cold drizzly Thanksgiving Day Sunday, the kind best spent indoors with wine and cheese.  And besides, I was moving pretty slowly after paddling 3 canoe races Saturday at the Ft. Langley Cranberry Festival Canoe Regatta.

The first remarkable thing you notice about Salt, is that it isn't the usual restaurant on a street - it's down an alley...Blood Alley is so-called because there used to be many butcher shops along the alley way... or is it because of Gastown's pioneer days there used to be lots of muggings?  Owner Sean Heather writes on the Salt blog that "Salt’s location will have the look and feel of NY’s meat packing district, right down to the cobblestones."  I recognized the location across from Salt as being used in the Catwoman movie with Halle Berry.

You can sit in the window, at the zinc bar (very cool and shiny) or at the long 18 ft spruce table made from a 700 year old tree in the main room.  I chose the window seats so my friends could easily see me when they came in.  The first thing we talked about was walking down the alley.

Salt is rightly called a tasting room.  There is no kitchen.  Cured meats are served, hence the name salt, along with fine cheeses and nice wines.  The concept is to match cured meats and artisan cheeses, with delightful condiments and great wines.

For $15, you choose a platter of 3 items. We asked the server to select her favorite things for us.  Ash Camembert and Comte cheeses arrived with Mike's Corned Beef.  They were each paired with their own matching condiment.  Ambrosia apples, balsamic reduction and Guinness mustard. We also ordered a side dish of Coppa meat which the server behind the bar suggested. 

Our wines were deep delicious reds.  I had the Shingleback Cabernet Sauvignon, and my companion had the blended d'Arenberg Shiraz Viognier.  Everything was very tasty - perfect for sampling this and that... looking out the window and feeling warm and cosy inside.

Our third companion arrived and I ordered another plate.  This time I chose the sea salt chorizo, and artigiano salami while Judy chose the bleu de Gex cheese.  The setting was great.  Not too crowded, but still warm and cosy in this post-modern West-Coast wood, zinc and concrete decor.  And too soon... our time shared was over.

There's a great opening blog that details how the restaurant was put together.  It includes the trials and tribulations and pictures of how the large tables were put together... fascinating.


Donna Green, Todd Wong and Judy Maxwell - enjoying cured meats, cheeses, condiments, wines and friendship. photo J.Maxwell

Sha Lin Noodles is one of my favorite places to eat fresh noodles in Vancouver. Throughout the summer, we often dropped in for dinner after Tuesday night dragon boat practice... or even on a Saturday afternoon for lunch. Today, Oct 15, CBC's Living Vancouver did a spot with Jennifer Burke visiting Sha-Lin Noodles. It's a funny but informative story with Jennifer trying to twirl noodles, and slurping like she's famished. She even handles chop sticks like an expert. Wait! Jennifer IS half Chinese. According to internet sources, she was born in London England, but raised in BC. Her father is Chinese and her mother English.   more »

It has now been just been over two years since we launched the drive to save historic Joy Kogawa House from demolition. It was mid-September when a demolition permit inquiry was made, but by the end of the week, we had notified news media, and made announcements at the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop Community Dinner, Vancouver Arts Awards and Word On The Street book and magazine fair....Last month, Joy's brother, Rev. Timothy Nakayama, came to visit the house he had left at age 10 in 1942. Timothy shared his recollections of the house and yard, as we try to determine ways to restore the house to its 1942 character when their family was forced to leave the house, and board a train taking them to internment camps near Slocan BC. We will hold the next public open house event on November 10th. Special guest speakers will be authors Ruth Ozeki and Shaena Lambert. The theme is War and Remembrance.   more »

No doubt this was inspired by the wonderful book Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination by Lance Berelowitz. Dream Vancouver: Diversity in our History and our Future...Today, I am living my dream of making Vancouver and Canada more racially tolerant and interculturally exciting!   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 »

Rod Langley has written a play about Robert Dunsmuir and his family. Learn about The Dunsmuirs who built Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, and how Robert Dunsmuir became the 5th richest man in North America, on the backs of Asian coal miners in Nanaimo/Cumberland. Check out this play about Robert Dunsmuir, the BC Premier who spoke out against anti-Asian legislation... partly because he employed Japanese and Canadian coal miners at lower wages.   more »

Vancouver IAM agregattor Blog Features www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com story as one of the TOP BLOG REPORTS

Striking Librarians Will Reject New Offer

According to the latest post from GungHaggisFatChoy, the Vancouver library workers strike has never been about money. In response to the set of recommendations published by mediator Brian Foley, the post declared that “this strike has been about fairness, respect and pay equity. Not one of these issues was addressed by Brian Foley's mediated recommendations.” Additionally, the post also reported that, following a meeting on Sunday morning, “CUPE 391 bargaining committee recommended to its membership to reject the mediator Brian Foley's recommendations.” GHFC remained insistent that one of the union's largest criticisms was “that the mediator did not understand the issue of pay equity.”

Noted left-wing author and journalist Naomi Klein reportedly made an appearance at the picket lines on Friday, speaking to striking workers and “giving her support for pay equity, stating that library workers have been under-valued.”

The post also noted that out of all of the recommendations issued by the 40 page Foley Report, less than 10 were related to the librarians- an indication that maybe the mediators aren't taking the librarians demands seriously. The post declared that “it has been typical that library workers have been seen as the most docile, least protesting - yet underpaid, and under-valued city workers. This is our first strike in our 77 year union history.” The lack of attention to pay equity issues, a lower than expected signing bonus, and a bias towards management are likely reasons why the city should “expect Vancouver library workers to reject his (Foley's) recommendations.”