I couldn't attend the explorASIAN explorMEDIA forum with panelists and moderators Rena Heer, Paul Grant, Barbara Lee, Ken Lum, Donna Spencer, Max Wyman, and Tom Chin.
But… Roland Tanglao attended, took notes and pictures.
check out his report at
http://www.urbanvancouver.com/explorasian-2005-explormedia-forum
Cheers!
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…
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
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!
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 Spencer, 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
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!
Bear has started up a new blog and has this to say about wearing kilts.
Kilts = more
More fun, more self respect, more life….
Kilts Make You Stronger
“Aren't you cold in that thing”…
Kilts Faux Pas
What's the worst kilt faux pas you've seen…
Goin' Commando
There are three ways to describe…
Kilts and Chicks
Why do women love men in kilts?
Physics and Kilts
What makes kilts so comfortable to wear?
Todd Wong and George Sapounidis – Two Wild and Crazy East-West Fusion music guys hanging with the girls in their dressing room
Todd Wong and George Sapounidis – two “Wild and Crazy” dapper East-West Fusion Guys!
This photo was taken backstage at the Spring Concert put on at the Michael J. Fox Theatre by Lily King.
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.
re: Open dialogue needed on racial, cultural issues – Pete McMartin
Vancouver Sun
Monday, March 28, 2005
Pete McMartin wrote a column today
stating that with the projected growth patterns of visible minority
immigration to Canada, that we need to take another look at
multiculturalism and ask if it is working.
He asks questions like:
What happens when the visible minorities are no longer minorities?
What pressures will be brought to bear
on the Western cultural tradition when immigrant numbers rival (in the
big cities at least) native-born populations?
Will the education system begin to
fracture along ethnic, linguistic and religious lines? Will the
same happen to our politics and voting patterns, with a clannish
loyalty o an ethnic community before the greater community?
What will unite us as a people? Will multiculturalism engender a choheseive future or a muddled one?
Canada was once a country of Two Solitudes: Are we about to become the country of Many Solitudes?
The following is my friendly response (short form – longer to follow).
Dear Vancouver Sun
I invite Pete McMartin to be a special guest at Gung Haggis Fat Choy: Toddish
McWong’s Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner, and to experience the joy shared
recently by Mayor Larry Campbell, and MLA’s Joy McPhail and Jenny Kwan who wore
each other’s tartan plaid and Chinese cheong sam. Over 3,000 guests have now
been served at this annual event that has inspired a regional CBC TV performance
special and a “Canadian Games” event at Simon Fraser University – all named Gung
Haggis Fat Choy.
Canada is now post-multiculturalism. Like inter-racial dating, and
inter-racial marriage, we are inter-cultural, sharing and mixing. We are now
beyond the solitudinal behavior of racism, protectionism and “otherness” and
embrace today that Canada as a nation, and shares a variety of heritages from
around the globe, as people marry into “our family”. Indeed, my own family
descended from Rev. Chan Yu Tan who arrived in 1896 is now seven generations
long in Vancouver. We have fought for Canada in WW2, had a Miss Canada finalist,
and even a First Nations Indian Chief. And we have welcomed people from all
around the world into the Chan decendents family – even the Scots!
Mr. McMartin’s answers will be found by experiencing life as a
multi-generational multi-ethnic Canadian – not by intellectualizing as a
Anglo-Gaelic-Canadian who doesn’t even own his own kilt, or does he?
When Canadian poet Fred Wah, who is ¼ Chinese, ½ Swedish, other parts Scots
and Irish, can read a poem about growing up in a hybrid culture to a loud
ovation, Chinese born bagpipers play along to a Scottish Canadian opera singer
singing in Mandarin – something special is happening. As our 2006 co-host
Shelagh Rogers would say, “Sounds Like Canada to me.”
Slainte, Todd Wong aka “Toddish McWong”
Here's an article on my friend Sid Tan from the pages of the West Ender newspaper in Vancouver BC.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Urban Legends
Sid Tan, on head tax and being a good-time man Who: Sid Tan
What: President of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians Roots: In Knowing his roots: “To live is hope. In the great scheme of things, I
Go left, young man: “Even as a kid, I was pretty politicized. One of Some Some Present-day Correcting Remembering International Copyright 2005 westender |
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