Category Archives: Asian Canadian Cultural Events

Very cool… Digital Dragon Boat Race: Treasure Hunt in Chinatown!

Hmm… a dragon boat foot race with cell phones?

The Digital Dragon boat Race is a treasure hunt of clues through Vancouver's Chinatown area, and linked with the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.

The Digital Dragon Boat Race is the first-of-its-kind game experience
in North America.  Teams of four must follow clues filled with learning interesting facts
about the history and culture of Chinatown, relevant to the Alcan Dragon Boat
Festival.

Preliminary Races will start May 29th winning teams will advance to a bonus
round, where they play the BIG screen Digital Dragon Boat Race for prizes.

Check out: www.ddbr.ca

Senses: New Show featuring Tang Jia Li at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts

Check out the following for the new show at the Centre in 
Vancouver for Performing Arts. I enjoyed the previous
productions of Heaven and Earth and Terracotta Warrriors.
I admit some background in Chinese history and mythology
helped make it more enjoyable, but Terracotta Warriors
held up well with repeated viewings, with its incredible
acrobatics and martial arts. For me, attending Chinese
oriented productions is really attending something from a
different culture, as I am a 5th generation Vancouverite.

I used to hate seeing Chinese opera and films (until we
discovered Bruce Lee movies!) But I found it really
resonated that I can explore and enjoy Chinese culture
- truly one of the world's great cultures that is so often
misinterpreted and misunderstood in Western Society
(knowing firsthand -after growing in misinterpreted and
misunderstood in Canadian socity... am I Cbinese?
or am I Canadian? gee... how about a little of both!)

See my reviews and pictures of last year's production
Terracotta Warriors


Senses
 

image


A Song and Dance Concert to Arouse your Senses!

A Celebration of Chinese Womanhood featuring dancer
Tang Jia Li

 

Billed as the song and dance concert that arouses all your senses,
this show has an added theme of celebrating the beauty and artistry
of Chinese womanhood.


Senses, the show, will feature each evening a pair of dancers, two
singers (a tenor and a female Chinese folk singer), nine female
musicians, and six accompanying dancers.

 

The headlining female dancer is Tang Jia Li, famous not only
because of her dancing agility but also because of her exquisite
beauty and elegance as seen through her well-known and artistic
library of nude photography. Together with the rest of the female
cast of Senses, the world will appreciate a new and modern face
of Chinese women not previously seen before.

 

Through specially orchestrated music that fuses the best of the
East with the best of the West, Senses will showcase to the
audience a different side of Chinese stage art and culture. Without
discarding the hallmarks of Chinese tradition and history, Senses
will reveal a new style and attitude of appropriate slogans for this
unusual live-stage presentation of Chinese female artists.

 

This show will truly arouse all your senses!

 Parental Discretion Advised

This weekend – Asian Heritage Month events plus Kilts Night at Doolin's

It's another busy May weekend.

Lots of events to attend + Mother's Day….



Check out Asian Heritage Month events at www.explorasian.org



Tonight there is:
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


 

The film series “Chinese Restaurants” is playing at Surrey Art Centre 13750 – 88 Avenue in Bear Creek Park, Surrey BC. 

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

Tonight I will be at Doolin's Irish Pub
for a combination of Kilts Night + Gung Haggis dragon boat team
social.  Wear a kilt and recieve a FREE pint of Guinness
beer.  We are also showing videos of the dragon boat documentary
for the “Thalassa” French Public TV show, that the Gung Haggis Fat Choy
dragon boat team was featured in last year.




6pm Doolin's Irish Pub

Nelson and Granville St. in Vancouver BC.


Sunday – we paddle
Gung Haggis dragon boat team
2pm at DBA compound
215 West 1st Avenue @ Cook St.

The Film: Chinese Restaurants – screening tonight in SURREY

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 Reading Series – hosted by ACWW for Asian Heritage Month

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

Everybody loves Chinese Restaurants! Catch the film series by Cheuk Kwan at Pacific Cinemateque this week!

Everybody loves Chinese Restaurants! Everybody's eaten at one.

But Cheuk Kwan loves Chinese restaurants so much, he has created a film series called Chinese Restaurants.
It is not difficult for Chinese Canadians to start getting the munchies
for some rice or noodles when travelling around the world. Like many
world travellers, sooner or later you start to crave the comfort food
that you grew up with. If you are a contemporary Canadian, sooner or
later around the world, you pop into a MacDonalds. But if you grew up
Chinese-Canadian, you pop into a Chinese Restaurant.

I have found these restaurants across Canada and the United States.
They are abundant in Toronto and Honolulu, but more rare in Needles,
California; Boise, Idaho; Provo, Utah; Sedona, Arizona, Nakusp BC…
but still they are there… and I eat there. The funny thing is that in
these small town areas, you could be the only Chinese people besides
the restaurant owners… In fact you could be the only other Chinese
person they have seen in days, weeks or months… so sometimes they try
their Chinese out on you, or they bring their children out to meet you.
“Are you Chinese?” they say…

The Chinese diaspora has spread throughout the world. Filmaker Cheuk
Kwan has travelled to Norway, Madagascar, Turkey and even tiny Outlook
Sasketchewan to tell the story about how the Chinese have settled the
world and made their contribution through Chinese restaurants. It was
with interest that I read Kevin Griffin's story in Monday's Vancouver
Sun on May 2, 2005, as he wrote about “Noisy Jim” Kook , from Outlook
Sasketchewan, profiled in “Three Continents.” I first met Noisy Jim at
Expo 86. It was my first experience with “clapper tales” the Chinese
art of story telling, or of “shop sellers” inviting people to come buy
their wares. Here in Vancouver, Dr. Jan Walls is an expert on clapper
tales. But there was something intriguing about this single elderly
wizened Chinese man, speaking in Chinese and English on the deck of
Canada Place at Expo 86. I did talk with Mr. Kook and take his picture
(I will dig into my photo boxes from 19 years ago).

Stories of Noisy Jim would resurface when I discoverd that the
woman who would become my sister-in-law, was raised in Outlook
Sasketchewan. She was surprised that I had heard her tiny hometown of
Outlook, and even more that I had met one of its most famous citizens.
It turns out that everybody in Outlook knew Noisy Jim, and Noisy Jim
knew everybody in Outlook. He sponsored the local hockey team, and
everybody at sometime, ate in his restaurant. In fact everybody loved
eating, and hanging in his restaurant… so much so that Noisy Jim
would give people the keys, so they could open the restaurant early in
the morning so he could stay in bed sleeping, while they cooked their
bacon and eggs, made coffee, paid their bills. A famous story was that
one time, Noisy Jim arrived at his restaurant to be asked “What do you
want for breakfast” by and American women, having a great time cooking
in the kitchen. She was a tourist, and she had stopped for breakfast –
only to join right in. She thought it was great.

I love Chinese restaurants. I grew up with them here in Vancouver's
Chinatown. We would frequent the old Bamboo Terrace where “Auntie
Winnie” would always give us gum, the HoHo where we would go for a
traditional Friday night dinner with family friends before shopping at
the Army & Navy or going to “Father and Son” swim nights at the
YMCA on Burrard Street, and especially the Marco Polo, where all our
family banquets would be held, and my father was the local sign writer
who painted all the show cards for the Louie Brothers who ran the
restaurant nightclub. It was a sad day, when the Marco Polo closed
down.

I'm booking tickets for Chinese Restaurants. I'm inviting my parents, my family, my girlfriend and my sister-in-law.

Book tickets at the Pacific Cinemateque on-line or get there early when the box office opens…

CHINESE RESTAURANTS

Western Canada Premiere of “Three Continents” by Cheuk Kwan

( Madagasgar, Norway and Canada)

Director and Cinematographer in attendance

Q & A after screening

Location: Pacific Cinematheque

May 4th 7pm, 9pm

Chinese Restaurants: Three Continenents (first showing)

Chinese Restaurants: Song of the Exile (second showing)

May 5th 7pm, 9pm

Chinese Restaurants: Three Continenents (first showing)

Chinese Restaurants: The Islands (second showing)

May 7th, 7pm

Chinese Restaurants: Three Continenents

Location: Studio Theatre, Surrey Arts Centre

May 8th, 7pm

Chinese Restaurants: Song of the Exile

Location: Studio Theatre, Surrey Arts Centre

Vancouver's Cultural (Con) Fusion? Check out the explorMEDIA forum at UBC Robson Square!

This is the hot ticket for Asian Heritage Month.  Hot discussion
is sure to come up with how the media represents/misrepresents Asian
Canadian arts and culture.

Max Wyman is the author of  The Defiant Imagination,
and incredible book about Canadian culture and how Multiculturalism is
important to expanding how we see ourselves.  I first met Max when
I was able to invite him to see Terracotta Warriors, because I felt
that Asian Arts were being unfairly reviewed by the media.  Click
here for my commentary that was turned into a CBC Radio commentary.

Barb Lee, Sherry Yoon, Donna Spencer, Ken Lum are all accomplished artistic producers, and should have a lot to say:
See you there!

explorMEDIA Forum

7:00 pm
UBC Robson Square, Theatre

Join us at UBC Robson Square for a community forum organized in partnership
with the UBC, Laurier Institution and CBC Radio as part of the ninth annual
explorASIAN Festival celebrating Pan-Asian arts and culture.

Vancouver's arts and culture scene ranges from CantoPop to Bangra to
Shakespeare. But does this reflect a unique cultural fusion or a confusion
of cultures? Join a diverse panel of artists and critics in an exploration
of Vancouver's Cultural (Con) Fusion.

This forum is open to the public and all media organziations are invited to
attend and participate in the discussion.


Moderators:
Paul Grant, CBC Radio and Rena Heer, Channel M




Panelists:




Barbara Lee
, founder of Vancouver Asian Film Festival Society, writer and
filmmaker




Ken Lum,
one of Canada's most celebrated and internationally exhibited
artists


Donna Spence
r, Artistic Director, Firehall Arts Centre


Max Wyman
, Vancouver writer, founder and former editor of The Vancouver Sun
Review of Books and one of Canada's leading cultural commentators

Sherry Yoon, Artistic Director, Boca del Lupo

Time: 7 pm

Place: UBC Robson Square, Theatre

FREE – ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED

To find out more and reserve your seat, call 604-822-1444 or visit
www.cstudies.ubc.ca/explorasian.

UP 335 S05A

This forum will be recorded by CBC Radio for future broadcast.

Link: www.cstudies.ubc.ca/explorasian

Link: www.thelaurier.ca

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

ExplorASIAN Gala – April 30 @ Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts

This should be an amazing show: 
The Korean Consulate has put in extra money to bring performers over
from Korea…  Sekoya is a home grown Canadian talent, and it
should be interesting to see what Garib and Paroo do with “Bombay
Dreams.”




Executive Don Montgomery has put in lots of hard work to make this the best Gala show ever!

Click here to download the printable version of the GALA 8.5×11 Poster (2 MB PDF)

Please print out the poster file and display in your workplace and pass along to friends.

Proceeds from the Gala go towards supporting the Society's artistic and multicultural community programs.

Please
tell your friends about the Gala. It will be one of the best shows you
will see this year. A terrific entertainment value for the entire
family!

BUY explorASIAN 2005 Heritage Gala Tickets

  • Tickets: $20 – $50 – $80 (GST included – TICKETMASTER fees extra)
  • Call 604.280.4444 to Charge by Phone keyword=explorasian
  • Advance reserved seating tickets also available from TICKETMASTER outlets
  • Buy from TICKETMASTER Online

Thank You, Canada, For Letting Us Land Our Plances: Asian American Poets in Vancouver


Thank You, Canada, For Letting Us Land Our Planes

Ricepaper Magazine, Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop, Filipino Canadian
Youth Alliance, and the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society
Presents:

“(NA)AWP: North Asian Americans Write Poetry, or
Thank You, Canada, For Letting Us Land Our Planes”

Featuring
KAZIM ALI, NICK CARBO, TINA CHANG, PAOLO JAVIER, TIMOTHY LIU, AIMEE
NEZHUKUMATATHIL, OSCAR PENARANDA, RAVI SHANKAR, PRAGEETA SHARMA, and
EILEEN TABIOS

WHEN: Friday, 7:00pm, April 1st 2005

WHERE: Our Town Café
96 Kingsway (Corner of Kingsway and Broadway) Vancouver

BIOS:

KAZIM
ALI is the author of the novel “Quinn's Passage.” He is assistant
professor of Liberal Arts at The Culinary Institute of America and an
editor with Nightboat Books. His first book of poems “The Far Mosque”
will be published this October by Alice James.

NICK CARBO's latest book is Andalusian Dawn. He lives in Hollywood, FL and teaches in the MFA program at University of Miami.

TINA
CHANG, the author of Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004), received
an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in
American Poet, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares,
Quarterly West, Sonora Review, among others. She has received awards
from the Academy of American Poets, the New York Foundation for the
Arts, Poets & Writers, the Van Lier Foundation among many others.
She currently teaches at Hunter College.

PAOLO
JAVIER is the author of two books of poetry, 'the time at the end of
this writing' (Ahadada), and '60 Lv Bo(e)mbs' (O Books, fall 2005).

TIMOTHY
LIU is the author of five books of poems, including OF THEE I SING,
which was named a 2004 Book of the Year by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. A new
book, FOR DUST THOU ART, is forthcoming from Southern Illinois
University Press. Recent poems have appeared in Arabic, Chinese and
Polish translations. An associate professor of English at William
Paterson University and a member of the core faculty at the Bennington
Writing Seminars, Liu lives in Hoboken, NJ.

AIMEE
NEZHUKUMATATHIL is the author of _Miracle Fruit_ (Tupelo 2003), winner
of the Tupelo Press Judge's Prize, ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book of the
Year, and the Global Literary Filipino Award, and was a finalist for
the Asian American Literary Award and the Glasgow Prize. She is
assistant professor of English at State University of New
York-Fredonia, right in the heart of Western NY's cherry and
berry country, where she lives with her dog, Villanelle.

OSCAR
PEÑARANDA, longtime community activist, advocate for ethnic studies in
the schools, teacher and writer, has two books out recently published
by San Francisco publisher/distributor T'BOLI PUBLISJHING: “Seasons By
The Bay, A Collection Of Interrelated Stories” and “Full Deck (Jokers
Playing)”, a collection of poetry.

RAVI SHANKAR is
poet-in-residence at Central Connecticut State University and the
founding editor of the online journal of the arts. His first
book Instrumentality, as published by Word Press in May 2004. His work
has previously appeared in such places as The Paris Review, Poets &
Writers, Time Out New York, Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review,
Descant, LIT, Crowd, The Cortland Review, Catamaran, The Indiana
Review, Western Humanities Review, Cake Train, The Iowa Review,
Smartish Pace, and the AWP Writer¹s Chronicle, among other
publications. He has read at such venues as The National Arts Club,
Columbia University, KGB, and the Cornelia Street Café, has held
residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, and the Atlantic Center
for the Arts, has served on panels at UCLA, Poet¹s House,
South-by-Southwest Interactive/Film Festival, and the AWP Conference in
Baltimore, been a commentator for NPR and Wesleyan radio, reviews
poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and is currently editing an anthology
of South Asian, East Asian, and Middle Eastern poetry. You can read an
interview with him at: www.jacketmagazine.com/16/dev-iv-shank.html.
He does not play the sitar.

PRAGEETA SHARMA is the author of
Bliss to Fill (Subpress Books) and The Opening Question (Fence Books).
She teaches in the graduate creative writing program at New School
University and in the low residency BA program at Goddard College. She
lives in Brooklyn, New York.

EILEEN TABIOS, recipient of the
Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry, recently released a
multi-genre collection, I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED,
encompassing poetry, experimental fiction, art monograph, play and
conceptual art. In 2006, she will release her 8th poetry collection,
THE SECRET LIVES OF PUNCTUATIONS, VOLUME I. She is also the founding
editor/publisher of Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary press based in
St. Helena and San Francisco, CA.