Now Available: Tickets for Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner
– It's the 12 Anniversary of the “little dinner that could.”
January 31st, Sunday 2010
Floata Seafood Restaurant
Vancouver Chinatown
Contact Firehall Arts Centre:
phone 604.689.0926
The Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Dinner has created an awareness of cultural fusion that has spanned international media, and been featured at the 2008 BC Canada Pavillion in Bejing during the 2008 Summer Olympics, the Royal BC Museum celebration exhibit of the 150th Anniversary of the province of BC, and a 2009 touring exhibition in Scotland titled This Is Who We Are: Scots in Canada.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy creator Todd Wong at the Scottish Parliament exhibition of THIS IS WHO WE ARE: Scots in Canada. The exhibition featured a life sized photo of Wong and a video interview about the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner, which features the acknowledgement of Chinese and Scottish pioneer history in Canada and contemporary culinary and cultural fusions.
Tickets are now on sale for the 12th Anniversary Dinner.
January 31st, Sunday, 2010
Floata Seafood Restaurant
Vancouver Chinatown
Doors open 5pm
Dinner starts 6pm
$60 + $5 service charge
or
$600 per table + $20 service charge
prices for students and children available.
Raffle Prizes are featured, as this dinner has traditionally been a fundraiser for: Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team, Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop/Ricepaper Magazine and Historic Joy Kogawa House.
Contact Firehall Arts Centre:
phone 604.689.0926
Visit the Firehall Box Office, 280 E. Cordova Street.
Box Office hours are: 9:30am – 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.
For media information
– contact: Todd Wong 778-846-7090
– email: gunghaggis@yahoo.ca
The origins of the dinner started with 16 people in a living room in 1998. The next year it expanded to 40 people in a restaurant. Soon it outgrew the first restaurant and expanded to 220 people in 2002. Moving to a larger restaurant for 2003, and expanding to a 2-night event in 2004, serving over 500 people. 2005 saw the move to North America's largest Chinese restaurant and present home of the dinner where 570 people were accomodated.
A 2004 CBC telelevision performance special, Gung Haggis Fat Choy, was inspired by the dinner, and received two Leo nominations for best music performance, and best director of music performance. In 2007, a CBC television documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy featured interviews with dinner creator Todd Wong, and film clips of the dinner.
A wide range of musical performers have been featured over the years including: fusion musicians Silk Road Music Ensemble, Dragon River Chinese Music Ensemble, Blackthorn celtic band, The Mad Celts, Chinese erhu master Ji-Rong Huang; opera singers Heather Pawsey, Veera Devi Khare; Jazz singer Leora Cashe. Featured poets have included: Joy Kogawa, Rita Wong, Fred Wah, George McWhirter, Fiona Tin Wei Lam, Jim Wong-Chu, Sean Gunn and Tommy Tao. The past 3 years have also featured sneak previews of Asian Canadian plays including: Mixie and the Half-Breeds, The Quickie, and Twisting Fortunes.
Todd Wong visits Scotland for Homecoming Year, the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns.
For the 2010 dinner, creator Todd Wong has just returned from Scotland after visiting the birthplace of Scotland poet Robert Burns, and researching the displays of Burns for Homecoming Scotland, and museum exhibits on Scottish history and emmigration to Canada. Wong is active in Chinese Canadian activities and visited Bejing and Xian in 1993. He hopes to combine a merger of Scottish-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian history and culture in the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.
Another extravaganza of culinary and cultural fusion are expected for the 2010 dinner. Details will be released each week leading up to the event. Special guest speakers, media hosts, poets and musicians are confirmed or being confirmed. The 2010 dinner will feature old traditions and new surprises, something borrowed and something brewed – especially created for the 2010 Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Dinner.
Tell your friends, and put a table of 10 together to enjoy the singalongs!
or come as a single or a double, and meet 8 brand new best friends for the evening at your table!
It's the most fun and intimate dinner for 500 you will ever attend!