This video was created by Dan Seto.   Check out Dan’s Chinese Canadian Roots YouTube video channel, too. Recipe Is Below:

DEEP FRIED WONTON HAGGIS DUMPLING

1 to 2 kohrabi cabbage, diced
2 medium size carrot, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks salted preserved daikon
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
3 tablespoons cooking oil
2 to 3 tablespoons light regular
4 to 6 oz. haggis or sub with ground pork
1/2 cup chicken broth or water
1 tablespoon cornstarch in 1/3 cup water
1 package large wonton skins or spring roll skins
2 to 3 cups of cooking oil, such as peanut oil

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Cut and dice kholrabi cabbage, carrots, onion, celery and salted daikon.
Preheat the wok or pan on medium heat. Add cooking oil. Then add ginger and garlic and stir-fry briefly. Add vegetables and stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes. Add haggis and stir fry. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Continue to stir-fry and then thicken the sauce with the cornstarch solution. Remove the haggis filling into a large bowl and let it cool.

Make circular dumpling wrappers by cupping the wonton skins or spring roll skins. Add 2 tablespoons or less of haggis filling. onto a dumpling wrapper. Seal the wrapper with egg wash or water. Crinkle the edges of the dumplings for a fancier appearance if you like.

Put the cooking oil in a pot or deep pan. Throw a small piece of dumpling wrapper into the oil to see if it sizzles. Add dumplings to the oil one at a time to prevent splatter. Turn the dumplings over for even cooking. Cooking time for the dumplings is about 3 to 4 minutes, depending on the oil’s temperature. Remove the dumplings onto paper towels to soak up some of the oil. Enjoy these dumplings with your favourite sauces, such as chilli, plum, or soy sauce. Enjoy!

Our menu has evolved from a traditional Chinese banquet and we try to alternate dishes each year, and include many vegetarian dishes.

Appetizer platter:
Veggie turnip cake (but similar to what my great-grandmother used to make, but minus the tiny shrimp and chinese sausage) 
Veggie Spring rolls (we once tried once with haggis, but people complained there was too much haggis)
Spicy Jelly Fish (if Chinese people are eating haggis, we ask Scottish people to please try the jelly fish)

Deep Fried Haggis Wonton dumplings
(this has varied over the years, but usually had prawn stuffing with the haggis + secret ingredient of “Chinese water chestnuts”)

Vegetarian Soup
Hot & Sour or Wintermelon or Fish Maw soup

Traditional Haggis
(sorry no vegetarian alternative available)
but served simultaneously with…

Vegetable Lettuce Wrap
+ we ask people to add haggis to the lettuce wrap with hoisin plum sauce or not! (for vegetarians)

Fish dish 
Represents good luck! Pineapple Sweet & Sour Fish Fillet or fish balls or ginger and sesame oil filet

Buddhist Feast with Deep fried Tofu
– definitely vegetarian traditional CNY dish – no meat alternative available

Beef dish
Gold coin beef, Manchurian tomato beef, Ginger beef or?

Long Life Noodles
One of my fav noodle dishes! – mushroom sauce for a vegetarian dish

Dessert
Mango pudding or sesame balls or red bean pudding?

And this is how we do it!!!

PERFORMERS

Featured poet:

Bonnie Quan Symons has been a poet for 35+ years, and last year she joined us at the Robert Burns statue in Stanley Park to read a poem by Burns. She has been featured at LiterASIAN and Word Vancouver, and has written many chapbooks and been published in many organizations. She is active in the Vancouver poetry community and is a member of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop, Pandora’s Collective and Writers International Network (WIN) Canada.

Featured welcome and author:

Larry Grant is a Musqueam Elder with Chinese heritage on his father’s side, who grew up both on the Musqueam Reserve and in Vancouver Chinatown. He gave our Indigenous welcome and land acknowledgment at the 2014 Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner. Larry has written a memoir with Scott Steedman titled “Reconciling: A Lifelong Struggle to Belong.”

Featured Filmmaker

Sarah Ling is a cultural and historical researcher, activist and curator. “All My Father’s Relations” is about Larry Grant and his 3 siblings travelling to China in 2013 to visit the ancestral village their father left in 1920 and meet relatives they never knew they had. The film won “Best Canadian Feature” at its premiere at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival.

Featured Bagpipers

Allan McMordie (a co-founder of the JP Fell Pipe Band, and often seen or heard in the news as a manager for North Shore Rescue), and Caroline Ng (who first joined the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team, then the JP Fell Pipe Band)

Featured Musicians:

Gung Haggis Fat Choy House Band is a group of author friends who also play musical instruments.
Chris Wong – jazz writer, Journey to the Bandstand
Sean Gunn – poet
Ann Marie Fleming – graphic novelist/filmmaker, Window Horse, Can I Get a Witness
Leith Davis – SFU Prof of English and Director of Centre for Scottish Studies at SFU, Robert Burns and Transatlantic Culture
Jill Barber – children’s author/singer

Music is For Everyone, Metaphora, Chances, Holly Jolly Christmas Album

Black Bear Rebels Celtic Ceilidh Ensemble
+ unannounced surprises!

. . . including Toddish McWong’s presentation of photos from his 2009 visit to Scotland – featuring the Robert Burns Birthplace Cottage and Museum and his 2025 trip to my own ancestral area of Guandong province, to Kaiping, China.

What do you get when you mix Robbie Burns Day, Lunar New Year, haggis, dim sum, kilts, and dragon dances? You get the one-and-only Robbie Burns Gung Haggis Fat Choy Celebration, galloping back in 2026 — the Year of the Fire Horse!

Part Scottish, part Chinese, all Canadian — Gung Haggis Fat Choy is Vancouver’s quirkiest, tastiest, most musical cultural mashup. Founded by local legend Todd Wong (aka Toddish McWong), the celebration has been defying cultural boundaries since 1998, proving that bagpipes and chopsticks really do belong at the same table.

This year, we’re adding an extra spark with the Year of the Fire Horse — a zodiac sign famous for boldness, creativity, and a little bit of mischief. (Sound familiar? That’s pretty much this event’s spirit animal.)

The celebration kicks off at Pink Pearl Chinese Seafood Restaurant (1132 East Hastings  Street, Vancouver, BC) on February 1, 2026.  Doors open at 5.30pm

Registration 

Single tickets $80.

Table of 10 — $800 will receive a complimentary bottle of Okanagan VQA wine.  

Registration 
Please note that seating arrangements are not guaranteed.   Due to limited seating, special requests cannot be honoured.  To ensure seating with friends/family, please purchase tickets together.

For media requests and ticket information, please contact: todd@asiancanadianwriters.ca

Last year, Todd and Catherine Clement (curator and author of the Paper Trail) were co-winners of the Larry Wong Prize from the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia (CCHSBC). This award honours individuals and organizations that impact the public history of Chinese Canadian history and heritage.  This year’s CCHSBC’s Annual Celebratory Dinner honoured our friend Winnie L. Cheung, educator, community-builder, and co-founder of The Pacific Canada Heritage Centre – Museum of Migration (PCHC – MoM) Society and former board member of ACWW.  

Todd Wong, Prairie Chiu, Effie Pow

Catherine Clement and Todd

Allan Cho and Steven Wong

Winnie L. Cheung

The History Scotland.com website lists 10 “facts you (probably) didn’t know about Burns Night, celebrated around the world on 25 January in memory of poet Robert Burns.”

#5.  Since 1999, the ‘Gung Haggis Fat Choy’ takes place in Vancouver, Canada. This multicultural event, blending Burns Night and Chinese New Year, features Scottish and Chinese poetry as well as a very rare delicacy – Haggis & Shrimp Wonton Dumplings. 

Gung Haggis Fat Choy often gets attention from Scotland.  Earlier this month, founder Todd Wong was asked by a BBC World News program for an interview for the travel program.  In past years, he has often been interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland. A few years ago, the Burns Birthplace Museum even posted an article about GHFC in Vancouver.

https://www.historyscotland.com/history/ten-global-burns-supper-facts/?fbclid=IwAR35tcnKn7OaPfpqyRfyQiO6xwqvHv570-sy6hsmeSdQEc549No3KxxSDeI