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Special Tribute Dinner to Wayson Choy, to help launch Project Bookmark Canada in Vancouver!

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I am very pleased to be part of the organizing committee for this very special dinner for Wayson Choy, author of The Jade Peony.

It will be an incredible evening of insider stories about Wayson, as well as leaders from the literary community sharing insight and praise.

It was my honour to get to know Wayson, when I was on the inaugural One Book One Vancouver committee for the Vancouver Public Library in 2002, as we encouraged the entire city to read Jade Peony, and discuss it with their neighbors, and attend related events.

In 2004, Wayson gave the Bill Duthie address for the Vancouver Writers Festival, and in 2009 he gave the Multiculturalism lecture for the Laurier Institution – both were brilliant.

Please join us.

 

 

Wayson Choy

A Special Tribute Evening to
Wayson Choy


in support of Project Bookmark Canada Jointly presented by The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop, Gung Haggis Fat Choy, Historic Joy Kogawa House Society and Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society/explorASIAN

On October 15, 2012 at 11 am on the Southeast corner of the intersection of Pender and Gore, Project Bookmark Canada and Wayson Choy will unveil two plaques to highlight and commemorate the physical landscape so vividly rendered in Choy’s iconic novel, The Jade Peony. Members of the public are invited to attend the plaques’ unveiling and to hear the author read from his novel.

Project Bookmark Canada is a national charitable organization that marks the places where the real and imagined landscapes meet. We do this by installing poster sized ceramic plaques – called Bookmarks – in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. This is the first Bookmark to be installed in British Columbia, with ten Bookmarks unveiled in Ontario and one in Newfoundland.

A Wayson Choy Special Tribute Evening will take place prior to the unveiling on Sunday, October 14, starting at 6pm at the Floata Chinese Restaurant, 180 Keefer Street. This unique event will take the audience on a 73 year journey back in time to witness the remarkable life of this literary iconic born in Vancouver’s Chinatown in 1939. During the evening, you will hear for the first time, stories told by relatives, close friends and colleagues from Choy’s past to illuminate Choy’s remarkable journey beginning with his early care-free childhood days at home and school and taste what it was like to grow up in pre-war Chinatown. There will be stories re-accounted by his childhood neighbour and best friend, Garson Lee and his older tap-dancing sister, Shirley Wong who babysat a young Sonny Choy. Listen in on intimate anecdotes told to you by his university schoolmates and instructors and how he became the precedent-setting first Asian-Canadian to enrol in UBC’s creative writing program. The evening’s program will include a rare interview footage of Carol Shields who, during the summer of 1977, taught as a guest instructor for a creative writing class . Hear her impression of Wayson and the exercise she used to inspired Choy to create his famous short story, The Jade Peony. The story was first published in the UBC Alumni Chronicle in 1979. Wayson’s journey as a writer continues when his publisher, Douglas & McIntyre recounts that faithful decision to publish a ground-breaking collection of linked stories titled The Jade Peony. Many successes followed and after the many literary prizes and acknowledgements, in 2002, the book was chosen as Vancouver Public Library’s inaugural ’s One book, One Vancouver. The evening will also include appearances by media personalities who have shared intimate moments with Choy and a new generation of writers and readers inspired by this remarkable man’s writing.

The event will be hosted by CBC radio personality, Sheryl Mackay and Todd Wong.

The Wayson Choy Special Tribute Evening will be held on Sunday, October 14, 6pm at Floata Chinese Restaurant, 180 Keefer Street in Vancouver historical Chinatown. The event includes an eight course Chinese dinner. Tickets are $55 per person or $500 for a table of 10. Proceeds of funds will go in support of the Project Bookmark Canada.

Come and meet Wayson in person and have your books autographed by him.

To purchase tickets – click here
You can also call Kristin Cheung at (778) 928-5408 to purchase tickets over the phone with a credit card
For media interviews with guest speakers and other info, please contact Jim Wong-Chu at 604-355-5795
Chinese media please contact Winnie Cheung at 604-836-8838

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS!

Gung Haggis teams race at Ft. Langley Cranberry Festival Canoe Regatta

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Gung Haggis Fat Choy teams at the Ft. Langley Cranberry Festival Canoe Regatta.  It is one of our favorite events of the year, and the weather was with us.  We have raced for about 10 years, and the last 5 years we have always entered two teams.  We initiated the Chili contest at the race to encourage teams to mingle, and ensure paddlers had hot food nearby.  It’s so much fun, and we enjoy sharing our experience with our paddling friends.
There were 20 teams entered and 3 final divisions.  Gung Haggis See Yu was captained and steered by Todd and Harvey, came a very close 4th in C Final by a half second, and finished 14th in final standings.  Gung Haggis Fam Lee was captained and steered by Karl and Xavier and finished 17th in final standings, while finishing 5th in the B Final.
Sybil holds the pumpkin to drop in the first race.  It was her first time in the Canoe Regatta.  She joined our team for the Steveston Race, mid-summer.
Harvey steered while Todd is lead stroke.  Good picture of our team as we race towards the bridge and finish line.
Todd seat 1, seat 3 – Remus and Sean, 3 – Sabina and Reni, 4 – Christian and Johnny, 5 – Maggie and Liz.
“Here little pumpkin… come to daddy!”  Remus scoops the pumpkin with two hands, while another boat collides with us. Harvey did an excellent job of steering and blocking the other team from the pumpkin.  We are a great lead stroke & steers combination, and switched positions for the 2nd race – just because… it was fun!
Sean wearing his red kilt, runs along the beach, balancing a glass of cranberry juice on his paddle, while Harvey had steered our boat inbetween another boat and it’s runner.  Great strategic move to cut them off… and delay their runner getting back in the boat.
Xavier steers our other team with Karl in seat 1, seat 2 is Anne and Debbe, 3 – Thuy and Di, 4 – Florian and Nicolas, 5 – Stewart and Jenny.
3 boats in search of a pumpkin.  Unfortunately most of the boats headed to the North/Centre portion of the bridge, while most of the pumpkins dropped from the Centre South portion of the bridge.  Lots of boat collisions and confusion.  We shouted down at Xavier to go South to find pumpkins.  Team Storm had their lead stroke Ray, dressed up as a pumpkin.
So close and yet so far… too bad voyageur canoes aren’t designed to be paddled sideways.
Almost there now…
Di was the beach runner for the team, and she chose to wear the knee-length blue Fraser Hunting Tartan.  She did a great job climbing in and out of the boat, and balancing the cranberry juice on her paddle.

Early Chinese Canadian Christian History Exhibition @ Crystal Mall in Burnaby

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Got this message from my friend Jim Wong-Chu

If you get a chance, you should see this photo display. Its totally awesome. Its at Crystal Mall, 2nd floor, straight ahead when you come off the escalator – by Food Court and ends October 10th. The era is early 1900’s -1950’s or so…….maybe you know of some of the families like I did ……………the churches included in the display from that era are Chinese United, Chinese Presbyterian, Good Shepherd Mission, and Chinese Anglican…………wonderful display that also features some well known Chinese Canadians from that era……great pics…….lots of reading too……..

 

 

2012 Word on the Street is always lots of fun…

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I am standing at the booth for Historic Joy Kogawa House – where I am president of the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society, and we now organize a writer-in-residence program, after we saved the childhood home of author Joy Kogawa in 2005.
It’s always great to see friends at WOTS.  Here we have Todd Wong, Marisa Alps (Harbour Publishing), Emiko Morita (Douglas MacIntyre), Jim Wong-Chu (Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop) and Angela McWhirter.
May Q. Wong reads her story from the Canada Writes stage.
Anna Ling Kaye is also a literary editor for PRISM magazine, as well as president for Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop.
Editor Alex Samur gives us a thumbs up from the Rabble.ca booth.
Elizabeth Balchinsky, editor of Event Magazine interviews Vancouver’s Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau and Creative Writing instructor Cathleen Witt.

Vancouver Squeezebox Circle at Word on the Street

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Our accordionists: front row – Alan, Todd, Elena; back row – Barbara, Rowan, Caroline, Carney, Richard – photo Deb Martin

It was the first time performance of the Vancouver Squeezebox Circle at the Word on the Street Book & Magazine Fair, and we wanted to make it literary!  In between our solo and group songs, our co-MC’s Barbara Adler and Todd Wong read/described books that featured accordions – both adult fiction and children’s books.

We read 2 stanzas from the Robert Service poem “Accordion”, we showed pictures from Jamie Lee Curtis’ children’s book “Is There Really A Human Race”, as well as “Mendel’s Accordion”, and “When Cats Go Wrong.” We closed by briefly describing the Annie Proulx novel “Accordion Crimes”, in which an Italian-made accordion travels across the Atlantic, lands in New Orleans, and soon finds itself playing Zydeco music, then German folk music, as it exchanges hands and cultural groups.

Our repetoire opened with a Sousa March titled “The Liberty Bell” which is more known as “The Monty Python Song”.   I performed the first solo, playing J.S. Bach’s Toccata in D Minor.  Next we played the “Col. Bogey March” from the movie Bridge Over the River Kwai.

Alan Zisman played a Klezmer song, Barbara sang an original song she wrote, and we all played the Can Can from Orpheus in the Underworld to close.

The Big Squeeze event: Accordion Noir Festival opens at Cobalt preceded by Todd Wong’s accordion parade circle

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Guro thrilled the audience with her singing and playing!
917 Main Street, Vancouver,
Doors 9:00pm, Show 9:30
Tickets $12 advance, $15 door
Tickets also available at Red Cat, Highlife and Zulu Records.
Online at http://accordionnoirfest-bigsqueeze.eventbrite.com/The Big Squeeze is a Film Noir inspired night of dark and decadent tom squeezery hosted by the king of hard-boiled commentary, Geoff Berner. http://geoffberner.com/
Headlining the evening is alt-cabaret accordion siren, Guro Von Germeten, all the way from Norway. (Opening act for Kim Churchill tour on Vancouver Island after the AN festival.)
Proud Animal, Barbara Adler’s new glam folk group, fresh off their cross canada tour will bring their cheeky wit and musical mastery to the evening.
A rare meeting of musical giants, Albanian accordion wizard Ben Meti joins with Romanian Violin Maestro Lache Cercel, and the hottest of the hot players in the Roma Swing Ensemble, to close off Accordion Noir’s opening night show. Lache Cercel heads to the US on tour shortly after the festival. http://lachecercel.com/
Feature Cabaret Cameos by:
Alison Jenkins, local theatre star and gifted musician, collaborates with puppetry of Tom Jones and Sarah May Redmond.  http://squeezebox.webs.com/
Elliot Vaughan, composer/multi-instrumentalist, offers up his unique approach to accordion and collaborates with theatre/dance artist Elysse Cheadle.  http://www.elliotvaughan.com/
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Richard, Elena and Todd – with our accordions at night!
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Glowstix are fun in the dark – Elena shakes her accordion!

Hapa Palooza Festival is Hapa-ning again!

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Hapa Palooza is back!

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Hapa-Palooza Book Readings and lively discussion tonight at Library Square – with my friends Ruth Ozeki who was one of the first readers at Kogawa House, and Wayde Compton, whom we hope to have as a special guest at the next Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner! https://www.facebook.com/events/322342784526190/

Hapa-palooza in the Strathcona Park will start with family yoga, have music by hapa DJ CRad, a super pro face-painter, a slackline exhibition, colouring sheets for kids to explore their roots and there are a whole host of kids activities right in the park: a playground, climbing boulder, big climbing diamond, and if you feel up for it there are tennis courts, basketball court, baseball diamond and soccer field.

Bring your family, friends, and community.

https://www.facebook.com/events/532240936791218/

 

Canada likes females on the new $100 bill to be “white-washed” and racially-neutral?

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Female image on $100 plastic bill – is “Too Asian” for the Bank of Canada

Earlier in August, a great debate started… and I commented lots on Facebook:
I posted the article on a few Facebook walls, as well as my own with the comment:
Todd Wong “I am thinking of Asian Canadian women who are valid and important scientists… and Dr. Hilda Ching was the Ruth Woodwyn Chair of SFU Women’s Studies – click this link to see her final report http://www.sfu.ca/gsws/RuthWynnWoodwardProfessorship/documents/1991_FinalReportRWWP-HildaChing.pdf“
There were lots of comments about the importance of promoting science, and since the $100 bill has a picture of insulin, people asked why are Banting and Best on the $100 bill?
But wait… Harper’s Conservative Government is putting an end to Canadian Science by muzzling them… so that can’t be true…. http://margaretmunro.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/feds-muzzle-scientist-over-salmon-study/
Feds muzzle scientist over salmon study  margaretmunro.wordpress.com
Yes… sadly… I had learned that the Canadian Conservative government was muzzing federally paid scientists.  This was all revealed during the Cohen Inquiry concerning the missing salmon in the Fraser River.  Federal scientists were told NOT to speak to the media or “others”.  What kind of country or society, would try to suppress information and knowledge?
But then I got a FB reply from Dr. Hilda Ching:
“This is Hilda Ching responding from Hawaii. Thanks Todd for your comments. I am amazed that the Woodward report is available. Since 6 of us founded SCWIST (Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology) in 1983, the profile of women scientists has changed considerably. The women are young professionals with Asian, Indo-Asian and European origins. We value their diversity, complexity of backgrounds and images. The change of the woman’s complexion to ‘white’ on the banknote reinforces the image that science as a white male and female’s elitist community. The white guy in a lab coat is history; so it would have been appropriate to have kept that image on the bank note as a ‘typical’ Canadian woman in science. In other words, ‘white’ is not ‘typical’ in the science community anymore.”
Then my friend Zarah Martzposted toTodd Wong
Your name was just dropped on CBC .. thanks for weighing in a Vancouver opinion on the $100 bill issues. Sad only people of European ancestry are deemed ‘neutral’ enough to be seen on a bill (by the focus group). Looking around at the vast diversity of people of all backgrounds celebrating multiple cultural heritages – it seems a step in the wrong direction. Let’s embrace Canada as mixed and representing our many cultural and ancestral roots.
I replied:

Todd Wong

huh? what was the context? I have been hanging out in Vernon with my non-Asian “in-laws” and their beloved daughter. Just spreading the awareness that Adrienne Clarkson and Michalle Jean were deemed worthy enough to be appointed the Queen

‘s highest representative in Canada – and racial “neutral-ness” was not a deciding quality. I met Hapa-Canadian Chad Soon for breakfast, and we plotted nominating hockey pioneer Larry Kwong, the first non-white to play in the NHL, to the BC Sports Hall of Fame… too bad, I didn’t get to also meet with my friend Betty Chan, the first Chinese-Canadian to be a national Highland Dance Champion – her father was Ernest Chan, the first Chinese-Canadian male to receive the Order of Canada.

21 August at 01:42 ·

Then I discovered that the Georgia Straight had published this story on their blog:

Chinese Canadian National Council applauds Bank of Canada’s apology

Prior to the apology, Vancouver cultural activist Todd Wong, organizer of the annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner, sent the Straight a revealing note from Hilda Ching, a former Ruth Wynn Woodward chair in SFU’s women’s studies department. It concerned the Bank of Canada’s design of its note (and it was emailed to Wong after he included a link to her report on his site).
All the pieces began to fit.  I had posted the original Yahoo news story on the Facebook Group “Not Too Asian” which is administrated by Victor Wong, executive director for the Chinese Canadian National Council.  I had also sent the Hilda Ching quote to Victor, so he quoted both myself and Dr. Ching in an interview on CBC Radio – which is where Zarah heard my name dropped.  Hmmm… interesting how a few emails and FB posts went from Vancouver to Victoria to Hawaii, back to Victoria and Vancouver, over to Toronto, then out to the rest of Canada on national radio.
This issue of the new Canadian $100 bill is much deeper than physical representation of white or asian.  It’s also not an issue of whether Banting or Best should be pictured with insulin.  What has been more revealing is all the racism that has filled the comment sections of the news media that discount the equal representation of women of colour, that was nixed by the so-called focus groups of the Bank of Canada.  This is what makes the comments by Dr. Hilda Ching so insightful. 

Todd Wong But what if the original picture was of a woman who was only “Half-Asian” like environmental scientist Severn Cullis-Suzuki, the daughter of David Suzuki, finalist for CBC’s tv show “The Greatest Canadian” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F26UqJaOUEQ

www.youtube.comDaughter of famed Canadian scientist, David Suzuki, Severn Cullis-Suzuki develop…See more

“Save the Salish Seas” canoe paddle to Cates Park

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One of the day’s highlights was meeting 11 year old Ta’Kaiya Blaney.  She is a young activist that was spoken to large crowds about No Tankers.  When she tried to visit the Engbridge Corporate Offices, she was escorted out of the building and banned.   She has recorded a song titled “Shallow Waters” that is incredible.  She was kind to take a picture for me holding up an Eagle puppet.  Watch her music video of “Shallow Waters”as it captures much of the reasons and emotions to save the Burrard Inlet and the Salish Sea from being polluted by oil.
The canoes paddled from Ambleside Beach to the Refinery docks in Burnaby.  There they gathered to sign a declaration of unity to protect the waters from an expanded Kinder Morgan pipeline and increased Tanker traffic.
The canoes then paddled towards Cates Park, and rafted together with the paddles held upwards in a symbol of peace.  The canoes then came in to shore, and one by one, a speaker from each boat, identified themself and their clanspeople in each boat.  They then asked for permission to come ashore.
Two chiefs, each from Squamish and Tsleil-waututh Nations spoke to the large crowd that gathered, to witness the arrival of the canoes.  When the canoes came to the shore, they listened to each speaker from each canoe, then acknowledged their connections and welcomed them to come ashore.