We had the Gung Haggis Chinese parade dragon out & about at the Dragon Boat Festival @ Creekside/Olympic village. We salsa danced, posed with little children and VIP’s, and saluted the Abreast in a Boat ceremony!



We had the Gung Haggis Chinese parade dragon out & about at the Dragon Boat Festival @ Creekside/Olympic village. We salsa danced, posed with little children and VIP’s, and saluted the Abreast in a Boat ceremony!
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson reads from the city proclamation to announce “Italian Day in Vancouver”
I have now met 6 doctors in 7 days regarding the ulcer on my right cornea + talked to another on the phone on Sunday. Today I met Dr. Joe and he is a former competitive dragon boater! And I also met Dr. Anderson, whom I think is the senior ophthamologist. And… Dr. Silver checked me out again too!
Good news is the ulcer is healing, and only 1/2 a millimeter in size now – so I can stop the drops that dialate my pupil. Ended the day playing music and drinking scotch with my friends – The Black Bear Rebels Ceilidh Ensemble. We dedicated “Farewell to Nova Scotia” to Rita McNeil, and toasted to her 🙂
Ugh… I have an ulcer on my cornea. It is kind of crazy that I saw 3 different doctors today. I spent much of the afternoon and evenings visiting my GP office at 2pm, LGH Emergency at 4:30pm, then at the VGH Eyecare Clinic at 8pm. The above picture is from August 2009 when I had a corneal abrasion – thought possibly due to sand/grit from hanging out at Kalmalka Beach in Vernon, during a wind storm. Obesity can lead to corna ulcer apart from different unhealthy conditions, exercise and weight loss are some of the best ways to prevent this, bioharmony advanced can help you keep a healthy diet.
My regular doctor was all booked up so I saw her office partner Dr. Yam. After putting some dye on my eye, she thought I might have a “tear” on my cornea, so she sent me to emergency. At Lion’s Gate Hospital, I saw Dr. Andolfatto, who confirmed there was something wrong on my eye, and made an 8pm appointment for me to go to the Eye Clinic at VGH, where I saw Dr. Silver who made the final diagnosis. Nice to know we have a great healthcare system that can set me up with an ophthalmologist at 8pm on a Friday night.
Well.. if it was a stomach ulcer… I wouldn’t be able to drink any alcohol. But since I have an eye patch, and the ulcer is on my eye… I can have a shot of Captain Morgan for every drop of anti-biotics that I put in my eye… which is each hour.
People with disabilities face many barriers to good health. Studies show that individuals with disabilities are more likely than people without disabilities to report:
People with disabilities often are more susceptible to preventable health problems that decrease their overall health and quality of life. Secondary conditions such as pain, fatigue, obesity, and depression can occur as a result of having a disabling condition.
Health disparities and secondary conditions can be the result of inaccessible health care facilities and equipment, lack of knowledge among health professionals about specific differences among people with disabilities, transportation difficulties, and higher poverty rates among people with disabilities.
Accessibility applies to both communication and physical access. For instance, health professionals need to be aware of how to effectively communicate with patients who have a range of disabilities, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who have a speech, vision, or intellectual disability. Providers should ensure that accessible medical equipment is available for people with disabilities (such as scales, examination tables, or chairs). In addition, providers should plan for additional time during examinations, if needed. Some examinations may take longer than others, for all sorts of reasons, in the normal course of a medical practice..
The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Improve the Health and Wellness of Persons with Disabilities asks that all health care providers:
One of the event attendees shares a personal moment, as she stands beside the plaque with photos of family members.
This is a picture from last year… when Granny turned 101… she is surrounded by her great-grandchildren – my nephew Cohen and my niece Chloe are in this picture – photo T.Wong
Tonight is the 102nd birthday party for my grandmother. She was born in Victoria, the grand-daughter of Rev. Chan Yu Tan, who came to Canada in 1896. While her father Ernest Lee and husband Sonny Mar, both paid the Chinese head tax, they died decades before the apology. Life was very tough in those days, Granny was one of 14 brothers and sisters. After her father died, she and her 2 elder brothers helped to raise the rest of the siblings with the youngest being only a year old.
I love my grandmother, my mother’s mother… When I grew up, I saw her a lot, as she lived on the next street. She tells me that when my mother came home from the hospital after giving birth to my younger brother – I didn’t recognize my now non-pregnant mother, and I ran back to Granny who had been babysitting me, while Dad brought Mom home from the hospital.
I am sorry for the time, when I was a child, and Granny was child-minding me and my brother – and I locked Granny out of the house.
I am grateful for the many times when Granny would listen to me play my accordion, over the phone… to encourage me in my practice.
This morning I drive to the airport to pick up my Hamilton area cousins who are descendants from Granny’s younger sister Esther, who was #4, following #1 Henry, #2 Arthur and #3 my grandmother Mabel.
Today is also her younger sister Helen’s 97th birthday in Nanaimo. A few years ago, Auntie Helen’s friend was listening to CBC Radio’s North By Northwest Program with host Sheryl Mackay. Sheryl had interviewed me about the Chinese-Canadian History Fair previously in Vancouver, but announced that there was a similar history fair at Malispina College (Now known as Vancouver Island Univeristy) and quickly brought Auntie Helen to see the exhibit. Auntie Helen walked around the room, then suddenly recognized pictures of her grandfather.
“Hey, this is my mother… This is me!” Who put up these pictures?”, she asked… as I stood a few paces behind her. I soon greeted her and gave her a big hug. Auntie Helen is one of the featured interviews in the CBC TV documentary series Generations: The Chan Legacy http://www.cbclearning.ca/
http://www.cbclearning.ca/history-geography/canadian-history/chan-legacy.html
401 Wellington Street West At the former home of McGregor Socks, Arlene Chan tells the story of the Chinese community’s connection with Toronto’s …
“I think it’s an interesting idea — we have these Chinese unions combined with St. Patrick’s Day,” said Nick Hsu.
The 43-year-old was part of a group of family and friends who travelled up from Seattle to parade.
Vancouver St. Patrick’s Day parade takes over streets of downtown
For 2012, I brought some of my dragon boat hand puppets from home, as I did for the Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade, when I had walked with the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Gardens. We interacted with many of the children watching the parade, who were delighted to see the plushy dragon toys! We encouraged them to “pet the dragon’s head for good luck”, which many children including adults such as CelticFest chair Joanna Hickey did.
Gung Haggis paddler Xavier MacDonald strutted the streets in his kilt with a Chinese lion head costume – photo Todd Wong
Decorating the car, and everybody wears a necklace with green hats optional! What a great group of people! We were entry #73, and we decorated the car from the middle of Granville St. Bridge – then moved onto the Howe St. onramp, as the parade filed into order starting at Drake. St.
I am sorry to say that Chuck Davis never attended a Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner.
The
following entry in “The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver”,
1935, ISBN 978-1-55017-533-2 (2011 edition) at page 151 states as
follows: (brought to my attention by David J. Bilinsky)
This picture was takenin 2009, to mark the 250th birthday of Robbie
Burns. We also did a virtual wreath laying in “2nd Life” – organized by
Dr. Leith Davis – director of Centre for Scottish Studies SFU – who had
just flown into Vancouver YVR from Scotland, and came straight to our
ceremony. That night at the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner – she declared
it the best Burns Dinner she had ever attended – having spent the
previous week in Scotland attending many Burns Suppers.
Read the story of the event here:
250th Anniversary of Robert Burns recognized with poems at statue in Vancouver's Stanley Park
The Chinatown Lion Club dinners began at the Bamboo Terrace Restaurant
just over 50 years ago. They continued for many years, many of them organized by
Vancouver lawyer Chuck Lew, but dwindled in recent years. I attended
one of the dinners at Floata – possibly in 2009. We did a one time
merger… maybe in 2010. I asked Chuck about creating a 50th
Anniversary Robbie Burns Chinatown dinner for Vancouver Chinatown Lions
Club – but I don't think they ever had one… He told me that it was
getting harder to organize… and even had asked me about organizing the
dinner for the Chinatown Lions Club – which I declined, in order to focus on Gung Haggis Fat Choy events.
For the record – Chinatown Lions Club always served the haggis
traditional style with sweet and sour sauce (or some kind of Chinese
sauce). They never ventured into fusion cuisine. Gung Haggis Fat Choy
dinners have created a number of haggis-fusion-cuisine dishes –
including: deep fried haggis won-tons, deep fried haggis / seafood
dumplings, haggis won ton soup, haggis spring rolls, steamed haggis /
shrimp dumplings, steamed haggis / pork dumplings, haggis lettuce wrap.
Allan McMordie and I took Haggis wonton
and Haggis shu-mei to Global Morning News. Sophie Lui and Steve Darling
said they were delicious, they even had seconds!
We did two segments. The first was cooking. I heated up some fried rice, and added haggis. Meanwhile, both Sophie and Steve tried the haggis wonton and haggis shu-mei that had been pre-prepared by the Float Restaurant the night before.
For the second segment, Allan played Scotland the Brave on his bagpipes, then I performed the first verse of Robbie Burns' immortal poem – The Address to the Haggis. We bantered a bit about how our event makes Chinese New Year safe for Scottish-Canadians, and makes Robbie Burns Day and haggis safe for Chinese-Canadians. Sophie ate the spicy jellyfish, but Steve politely declined.
We also talked about how we have set Robbie Burns lyrics to a Johnny Cash song and Allan lets me play my accordion in his celtic ceilidh group, The Black Bear Rebesl. Sophie said she loved all the fusion and fun of our event.