Here's a fun event...
the film documentary series "CHINESE RESTAURANTS"
Tonight! in Surrey

I went to see the "Three Continents" installment, and it was very interesting
Imagine Madagascarians cooking Chinese Food!
Also featured in Noisy Jim Kook from Outlook Sasketchewan,
so popular he was asked to run for Mayor.
It's a wonderful journey through the Chinese diaspora,
a story about survival, courage and hope in a new land.

Cheers, Todd

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PLEASE NOTE: THE MAY 8 SCREENING DATE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO 
MOTHER'S DAY

We are now presenting a DOUBLE BILL on MAY 7 for the same price as a 
single screening! Fantastic deal to see two excellent movies that are big hits 
on the international film festival circuit!

In person: cinematographer Kwoi Gin
Q & A Session

explorFILM - May 7 - 7:30pm
Films: "Chinese Restaurants" documentaries - "Three Continents"

explorFILM - May 7 - 9:30pm
Films: "Chinese Restaurants" documentaries - "Song of the Exile"

Tickets $10.00 + $1.45 s/c

Info/Box Office 604-501-5566 (pay by VISA or MasterCard)

Surrey Art Centre
13750 - 88 Avenue in Bear Creek Park
Surrey, BC

http://www.city.surrey.bc.ca/Living+in+Surrey/Arts/Surrey+Arts+Centre+Theatres/

explorFILM - May 7 - 7:30pm
"Three Continents"

Toronto filmmaker Cheuk Kwan visits family-run Chinese restaurants in
Madagascar, Norway and Canada to explore the meaning of "home" in 
Chinese communities on three continents. In the port city of Tamatave, 
Madagascar, home to a sizable Chinese population, a rendezvous at Restaurant Le 
Jade leads to an intriguing historical question: Did the Chinese come to
Madagascar in the fifteenth century, years before the Europeans?

In Norway's land of the midnight sun, Michael and Ting Wong operate the
Little Buddha, one of the very few Chinese restaurants inside the 
Arctic Circle, where the Norwegian waitresses struggle with the owners' desire 
to impose Hong Kong-style efficiency and the Chinese-born kitchen workers 
talk of their loneliness so far from home. In Outlook, Saskatchewan, "Noisy" 
Jim Kook ran the New Outlook Café for forty years - and became the most 
popular man in town - after making his way to Canada at a time when most 
Chinese immigration into the country was officially barred by the Chinese 
Exclusion
Act of 1923. Colour, Beta SP video. 80 mins.


explorFILM - May 7 - 9:30pm
"Song of the Exile"

Three extraordinary families who run Chinese restaurants in, 
respectively, Israel, South Africa, and Turkey share their moving stories of 
struggle, courage, displacement and belonging, and reveal the complexities of 
what it means to be "Chinese" today. In Haifa, Israel, a land where religious 
and ethnic identity are often powerful sources of tension, an ethnic 
Chinese refugee from Vietnam named Kien Wong and his family run the Yan Yan
Restaurant and negotiate their complex identities as evangelical 
Christian, ethnic Chinese citizens of a Jewish homeland surrounded by Arab states. 
In Cape Town, South Africa, the city's first Chinese restaurant, the 
Golden Dragon, was opened by Lam Al Ying, a Chinese man who was classified as
"white" under Apartheid but whose wife Onkuen, also Chinese, was 
classified as "coloured." Istanbul's China Restaurant, Turkey's oldest Chinese 
eatery, was opened in 1957 by Wang Zhengshan, a Chinese Muslim who led his 
family on a dramatic trek by foot over the Himalayas in 1949 in order to flee 
Mao's victorious Communists. Colour, Beta SP video. 80 mins.


An original, fascinating, charming and sensitive examination of human
tenacity and decency at its best.
- June Callwood, Canadian author

A colourful travelogue of a global citizen.
- Hong Kong International Film Festival

A brilliant and incisive look at the intersection of Chinese 
immigration and local politics.
- San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

A fascinating journey exploring relationships between culture, 
geography and Chinese restaurants, it will make your taste-buds sing!
- Vancouver International Film Festival

The film seeks solutions to the problems inherent in multi-racial and
multi-cultural societies.
- Pusan International Film Festival


Don't miss the screening of Cheuk Kwan's latest film in his series 
"Chinese Restaurants" and the encore screening of "Song of the Exile" at the 
Studio Theatre in Surrey! Meet the cinematographer Kwoi Gin at the Q&A session
after the show.

FILM INFO: www.chineserestaurants.tv


If you have ever worked in a restaurant or were raised in a restaurant
family, you will definitely enjoy these two films.
Hope to see you on Saturday night at the Surrey Art Centre.

Don Montgomery
Executive Director

Phone 604.488.0119
Direct 604.878.6888

explorWord – Spoken
Word Event – May 7 – 7pm
Location:  Our Town
Café – 96 Kingsway, Vancouver
Featuring Kagan Goh, Jen Lam, Glenn Deer, Fernando Raguero
and others

explorWord – Reading
Series – May 14 – 7pm
Location:  Our Town
Café – 96 Kingsway, Vancouver
SCRIPTING ALOUD: An evening of dramatic and comedic readings and
performances
featuring works by Charlie Cho and Grace Chin; members of the Hot
Sauce Posse; Kathy Leung; and guests.

explorWord – Reading
Series – May 14 – 1:30
– 5:00pm
Location: Strawberry Hill Library 7399 – 122 Street, Surrey 

SILK ROAD JUNCTION: The caravan of Silky Surrey Stanza
has reached “Korea
– India Junction” Ashok Bhargava is your host and guide. Come to
experience through Indo-Korean dance, music and poetry, how a sixteen
year old
Princess from India
traveled to Korea
two thousand years ago to marry King Kim Suro. Featuring Bong Ja Ahn,
Park Hae
Jung, Regina Choi, Mani Rao, Emily Chu, Manga Basi, and Chung Hye
Seoung.

explorASIAN Red Silk Reading Series – 7pm  
Vancouver
Public Library – Main Branch
May 17 – Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby
– WAC Bennett Library
May 18 – City of Richmond
– Council Chambers

featuring the launch
of Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Women Poets, with a special
guest: Rishma
Dunlop and Priscila Uppal, (eds.) and Hiro Boga, Kuldip Gill, Sonnet
LAbbé,
Danielle Lagah, Sharanpal Ruprai,Sandeep Sanghera, Shauna Singh
Baldwin, Proma
Tagore; and special guest Mani Rao. And
readings by South Asian Fiction Writers: Anar Ali,
Jaspreet
Singh, Sikeena Karmali 

explorWord – Reading
Series – May 21 – 7pm
Location:  Our Town
Café – 96 Kingsway, Vancouver
Featuring Lydia
Kwa, Sook Kong, Fiona Lam, Chris Gatchalian, Rita Wong, Rupinder Sohal

explorWord – Reading
Series – May 28 – 7pm
Location:  Our Town
Café – 96 Kingsway, Vancouver
Featuring Mishtu Banerjee, Joy Kogawa, Hanako Masutani,
Alexis Kienlen, Glenn Deer