
Tartan Day proclamation for City of Vancouver


We gathered at the Council Chambers foyer with Mayor Sam Sullivan and city councilors for our this photo. Bagpiper Allan McMoridie and Darryl Carracher of the Scottish Cultural Centre joined us for the ceremony. The motion had been brought forward by city councilor Heather Deal.
Tartan Day proclaimed! standing l-r: Tim Stevenson – city councilor, Darryl Carracher – Scottish Cultural Centre, Heather Deal – city councilor, Allan McMordie – JP Fell Pipe Band, BC Lee – city councilor, George Chow – city councilor, Todd Wong – Gung Haggis Fat Choy, Kim Capri – city councilor with Mayor Sam Sullivan. Photo courtesy of Sven Buemann City of Vancouver
I brought the tartan sashes and extra kilts that the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team wears for paddling and kilts nights. Tim Stevenson held up a kilt for the picture, and Kim Capri donned the mini-kilt. Sashes were taken up by Sam Sullivan, George Chow and BC Lee. Heather Deal wore her own tartan skirt.

Here is Mayor Sam holding the proclamation with Councilor George Chow, Darryl Carracher, Todd Wong, Councilor Heather Deal and bagpiper Allan McMordie. Photo courtesy of Sven Buemann City of Vancouver
Later in the evening, our Kilts Night gang met at Doolin's Irish Pub. Allan brought his entourage, but forgot his bagpipes. Graham McNicholl showed up with 2 more contingents of the Vancouver Tartan Army. Kiltmakers Rob Macdonald and Terry Bear Varga joined us too! Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team members Joy, Raphael, Tzhe and Leanne were on hand, as we danced to the music of the Halifax Wharf Rats, following the Vancouver Canucks loss. At the first music break, we read the Tartan Day proclamation from the stage.
Next Tartan Day activity
Gung Haggis Fat Choy Tartan Day dragon boat paddle
Sunday 1:30pm
on water 2-3:30pm
Dragon Zone @ Creekside Park
just south of Science World – above the ferry/dragon boat docks
Kilt maker Rob McDonald and I first discovered each other when we were both interviewed for a Vancouver Courier article Hearts in the Highlands about Robbie Burns Day by Fiona Hughes. We finally met at a Kilts Night event at Doolin's Irish Pub.
Rob's website is www.westcoastkilts.com.
He regaled us with stories from his days in the Seaforth Highlanders
where he first learned to make kilts. This man is full of great
entertaining stories.
Rob came out to last year's Tartan Day Kilts Night event, and helped bring out lots of kilts and mini-kilts for the Kilt fashion parade, organized by Terry Varga. With Tartan Day being proclaimed in the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Sun writer Chantal Eustace interviewed Rob about the etiquette of making and wearing kilts:
Published: Thursday, April 03, 2008
Whenever he can, local kilt maker Robert MacDonald likes to wear his Scottish heritage on his hips.
“I'd say it's an integral part of who I am,” says MacDonald, adding that he is more comfortable in a kilt than in trousers.
It
has nothing to do with the fact that Tartan Day — the province's
annual nod to its Scottish heritage, part of a global celebration of
Highland culture — is this Sunday.
“For
me a kilt is just something I grew up with, like a T-shirt,” MacDonald
says when asked about Tartan Day. “That's like saying, let's celebrate
T-shirt day.”
It doesn't concern him that the holiday, recognized in B.C. since
1993, hasn't taken off in the local Scottish community with the same
gusto as Robert Burns Day.
“I wish [Tartan Day] well but I can't
say I'm rooting for it on the sidelines like a cheerleader,” MacDonald
says, seated at the kilt-making table in his Vancouver home, where he
sews his made-to-order creations. “I'll be fine if it takes off and
I'll be fine if it doesn't take off.”
After all, there is a year-round demand for his tartan creations.
Read the rest of the story:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=39d11102-9e1f-49e6-8f13-c287f3dcead0&p=1
Here's the first public media acknowledgement that Tartan Day is officially happening in the City of Vancouver.
Indeed, the city of Vancouver, province of BC, and country of Canada – all trace it's historical beginnings to Scottish pioneers.
Vancouver's first mayor was Scottland born Malcolm Alexander McLean, elected in 1886. BC's first governor was born of a Scottish father in Guyana, then raised in Lanark, the Scottish market town where the Scots Parliament was first held and where William Wallace used to live. Canada's first Prime Ministers was Sir John A. MacDonald, born in Edinburgh.
But today in Canada's most Asian city, where BC traces it's Chinese ancestry to 1858, it's year of conception as a British colony, the charge to create a Tartan Day recognition is led by multigenerational Canadians of Chinese ancestry, Todd Wong and Raymond Louie.
Published: Thursday, April 03, 2008
Vancouver's
lads and lassies have until Sunday to press their kilts and dust off
their sporans for the city's first official Tartan Day.
Council
will declare today that Vancouver is joining a long list of cities
around the world that celebrate their Scottish roots on April 6.
The
idea of hopping on the international Tartan Day bandwagon was the
brainchild of Todd Wong, who founded the local phenomenon known as the
Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner.
The
event, which marries Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day at the end
of January, celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
The
declaration comes at the urging of Vision Vancouver councillors Heather
Deal — still livid over her Macdonald clan's defeat at Glencoe in 1692
— and Raymond Louie — who claims to be a MacLouie, despite his
Chinese heritage.
Deal says the idea is to add a
Scottish-flavoured salute to the city's Celtic roots, already
acknowledged with an annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Celtic festival
and the Gung Haggis dinner.
Wong is expected to make an
appearance at the ceremony in council chambers, accompanied by a
traditional piper. The 47-year-old fifth-generation Chinese Canadian
says he came to love all things Scottish — including Robbie Burns —
in 1993, when he volunteered at a Burns dinner at Simon Fraser
University.
cmontgomery@png.canwest.com
Tartan Day will be proclaimed in the City of Vancouver sometime this week
I solicited SFU Scottish Cultural Studies to created a proclaimation, which I passed to city councilor Raymond Louie.
Kilts Night “Tartan Day” celebration happening at Doolin's Irish Pub – after the hockey game… or between periods?!?!
details TBA
Sunday – official Tartan Day.
Vancouver Tartan Army is planning something details TBA
Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team will wear the tartan to dragon boat practice 1:30pm at Science World dragon boat docks.
Ron MacLeod Chair V of the SFU Scottish Studies program writes:
Happy St. Patrick's Day. It's the day after Celtic Fest and the Vancouver St. Patrick's Day parade. I am still wearing my green Gung Haggis Fat Choy t-shirt.
Being in a parade doesn't allow you to take pictures of your group, so it's always interesting to find pictures on flickr.
Steven Duncan took some pictures of us setting up. Check out his flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/9057324@N08/sets/72157604144696435/
Michael Brophy gets in touch with his “inner dragon” – photo Steve Duncan (by permission)
Julie and Hilary help Todd assemble the new parade dragon – photo Steve Duncan (by permission).
Check out these pictures by ![]()
By Kashmera
Stuart MacKinnon and I sat on the front of my car with our kilts on… and paddled. We tried to get a dragon boat named “Fraser” into the parade, but it ran into trailer problems. So we improvised. It was quite funny, because a few people yelled out “Where's your boat?” And Stuart insisted on paddling with my Chinese dragon hand puppet stuck on his hand. I don't think I ever saw it come off, until there was a glass of Guinness in his hand after the parade.
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Our Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team carried our new Chinese parade dragon. Below Raphael and Leanne lead the dragon, while Michael wears a Chinese lion head and terrorizes the volunteers! |
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Gung Haggis Fat Choy puts a dragon (not a snake) in the 5th Annual St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon team: Stuart holds the paddles, while Joy, Deb, Hillary, Richard, Michael and Leanne (out of picture) hold up our new parade dragon! – photo Julie
The 15 foot long Chinese dragon undulated up and down in the air above the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Vancouver’s Granville Street. A mini version of the larger 10 or 20 person dragons used in Chinatown Chinese New Year parades, it jerked hesitantly. Five Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team members carried short poles sporting a yellow body with red scales and blue and yellow ridge.
It flowed unsure of itself, as the leader lowered and raised the head and the body followed. It ran from one side of the road to the other, slowing down to flap its mouth and pay attention to the children.
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A Chinese dragon in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade? Didn’t St. Patrick drive the snakes out of Ireland?
Ahh… but this is multi-inter-cultural Vancouver. Dragon boaters paddle in kilts, and bagpipers perform in the Chinese New Year Parade. And the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner serves up deep-fried haggis won tons. Welcome to Vancouver!
Yesterday I was in Chinatown looking for some kind of dragon to use for our parade entry. I had only learned the day before that the trailer used for Fraser Valley dragon boats had some safety issues. Damn!
It would have been very cool to put a “Fraser” dragon boat into the Celtic Fest St. Patrick’s Day parade, and have our dragon boat team members wearing the Hunting Fraser tartans (okay we call them “sport tartans”).
I checked around to try to find a Vancouver area dragon boat and trailer to use as a replacement. But no luck.
For the first three years of the festival, I had featured a Taiwanese dragon boat, that we pulled on a trailer. Very colourful. Very ornate. Very good audience reaction, as we “paddled” on the boat and banged the drum.
But this year… Sorry – no dragon boat… so we improvised…
I looked in Chinatown stores at seven foot long plastic expandable dragon decorations. They looked cheap. Some looked pretty cool, with bright jewel cellophane coloured assembled pieces for its head. $49.
But then I saw a larger cloth covered dragon for $148, like the kind used in the Chinatown parades, but with only two poles.
Then I saw a large dragon face staring at me, with a large pink tongue sticking out. A large round body, stretching 16 feet long alongside the staircase leading to the second floor. Wow! It’s yellow head was about the same size as the large Chinese Lion head mask that I have. I wanted it!
A big commitment buying a parade dragon like that. As I was looking at it, a woman said to me, “ Are you Todd Wong?” My daughter Shane did a lion dance at Gung Haggis Fat Choy!”
“Hi… uh… that’s great! Nice to see you… was that at SFU?” I answered (I didn’t remember ever having a Lion Dance at a Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner).
“No… it was about a month ago, in Seattle!” She said, “My name is Sam.”
In Seattle Bill McFadden had organized a grand Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner with 5 Lion Dancers. The mother and daughter had popped up to Vancouver from Seattle for the day, just to see a martial arts demonstration earlier that day on Saturday. We had a wonderful conversation about Lion dancing, and what a beautiful dragon we were looking at.
“We don’t have a dragon at our school,” they said. “This dragon is gorgeous! It would be great to have.”
I bought the dragon.
The weather was chilly today for the March 16 parade this morning, high overcast. But 5 Years…. and NO RAIN!!! Incredible!

Our dragon boat team members started assembling about 10:15am. It took awhile for some of us to find us, because our car had been “temporarily” ushered into the “walkers” area instead of the “motorized” area, so that we could unload the car and decorate it.
Our paddlers marveled at the new dragon making its’ public debut. We struggled trying to screw in the poles to the dragon. We put green Gung Haggis Fat Choy shirts on our participants. We put kilts on the people who didn’t show up in them. We put green plastic bowler hats on the men or tiaras on the women, and we gave everybody mardi-gras style green, purple and blue beads.
We were festive. We were fun. We were happening!
People seemed to like the Chinese dragon we had on 5 poles…
and the Chinese lion head character…. Michael lead the dragon first. He is 1/2 Chinese, 1/8 Irish and 1/8 Scottish. Following and supporting the dragon were Leanne, Richard, Hillary and Joy.
Lots of interaction with the audience, playing to the cameras… giving attention to the children. Raphael and Stuart carried dragon boat paddles. I wore the large Lion Head mask.
Todd Wong and Lion Head mask – photo Michael Brophy
We got lots of crowd reaction, when Raphael and I started sitting over the front fenders on the car hood, paddling dragon boat style.
In the parade we saw lots of great pipe bands, Irish dancers, Scottish highland dancers and even horses and Irish Wolf Hounds.
It was nice to see a Korean parade entry, and a Chinese Falun Dufa entry. Apparently for the Chinatown parade – they wouldn't let Falun Dufa participate, because it is a “hot issue” for the Chinese embassy. And I even found two Chinese bagpipers. Xi “Jonsey” is in the J.P. Fell pipe band and Fu Cheong is in the Irish Pipes and Drums.
Jonesy Wu and Todd Wong – Celtic loving Chinese-Canadians in kilts – photo Michael Brophy
After the parade, we visited the Celtic village set up on Granville St., then dipped into Ceili's Irish Bar for some food and well-deserved Guinness beer. It was great to be back at the very site where Thursday night, I had won the inaugural “Battle of the Bards” playing Robbie Burns!
But I couldn't stay long, as we still had a dragon boat team practice, and I was coaching!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH to the Celtic Fest organizers for having us in the parade. We are glad to add a multicultural aspect to the festival, and hope to organize an event for “Celtic-Asian-Canadians” next year – celebrating Celtic-Asian-Canadian literature, music and arts!
The rain started about 4:30pm in Vancouver after the most successful St. Patrick’s Day Parade ever.
A Chinese Canadian Robert Burns? Go figure! But for some people it makes sense… at least in multicultural intercultural Vancouver.
Last week the Vancouver Courier interviewed me for a Celtic Fest story about tonight's Battle of the Bards. Photographer Dan Toulgoet met me at the Robert Burns statue in Stanley Park, which had been erected 80 years ago.
It's always interesting to find out how other people perceive Gung Haggis Fat Choy, and what they think about my persona as “Toddish McWong.”
Come check out the Battle of the Bards literary pub crawl:
5:30 Doolin's Irish Pub
6:05 Atlantic Trap & Gill
6:45 Johnny Fox's Irish Snug
8:00 Finale (cost $5)
Caile's Irish Pub Dublin Bar 2nd floor
poets “perform” with DJ + celtic fiddler
dancing afterwards
Read Fiona Hughes article:
Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
O'Braonain, McManus, MacIsaac, Wong. Which one is not like the other?
In
any other city, finding a Wong performing among all the fiddling and
whiskey-swilling Macs and Mcs at a celtic festival might be as
impossible as discovering a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But
in cross-culture pollinating Vancouver the inclusion of Todd Wong in
the Edgewater Casino CelticFest Vancouver is a no-brainer. (The
festival runs March 12 to 16 with the fifth annual St. Patrick's Day
parade scheduled for Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Granville Street
downtown.)
Wong, as many Vancouverites know, is the man behind
the now legendary Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner, an event that combines
Chinese New Year celebrations with Robbie Burns Day at the end of each
January. The 2008 dinner marked the event's 10th anniversary.
So
when festival organizers went looking for a local to play Robbie Burns
in a new event at CelticFest, they looked no further than Toddish
McWong. He's featured in the Battle of the Bards pub crawl Thursday
night (March 13). The event is inspired by the renowned Dublin Literary
Pub Crawl, in which three actors act out famous works by Irish scribes.
In Battle of the Bards, three men will take on the roles of Scotland's
Robbie Burns (Wong), Wales's Dylan Thomas (Damon Calderwood) and the
Emerald Isle's William Butler Yeats (Mark Downey). They'll recite
famous works from the triple threat of Celtic literati while touring
local Celtic-flavoured pubs (Doolin's, Atlantic Trap and Gill, Johnnie
Fox's Irish Snug). At the end of the pub crawl, the three “literary
giants” will face off against each other in a spoken word poetry slam
at Ceili's Irish Pub and Restaurant. But Wong, who earns his paycheque
as a part-time library assistant and dragon boat coach, isn't an actor
and he's up against trained thespians.
Robert Burns aka Toddish McWong was interviewed today on Co-Op Radio's Wax Poetic – hosted by Steve Duncan and Diane Laloge.
http://poetryradio.blogspot.com/
Wax Poetic recognized the first day of Celtic Fest by highlighting the “Battle of the Bards” event featuring celtic poets Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats and Robert Burns, played by Todd Wong.
Diane and Steve asked Todd about the origins of Gung Haggis Fat Choy http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com
and how he became interested in Robert Burns.
Todd described the first meeting of the Battle of the Bards for a CBC Radio interview with Paul Grant.
Todd also read poems “My Luv Is Like a Red Red Rose” and “A Man's a Man For A' That and A' That”.
Burns poetry is full of love, social justice, equality, and love of life. The issues he wrote about are still relevant today.
Todd then closed with a rap version of “Address to a Haggis.”
Steve describes The Battle of the Bards as a fun event inspired by the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl:
Yeats and Burns (really two great performers, Mark Downey and Todd Wong) will be going head-to-head, along with Dylan Thomas (Damon Calderwood) in a unique literary event this year on Thursday, March 13: The Battle of the Bards Literary Pub Crawl, a
combination pub crawl/poetry slam where the legendary poets go from pub
to pub downtown performing their works and being judged by members of
the audience armed with scorecards. The event culminates in a Jack Karaoke-style match at Ceili's Pub, where they must do their pieces accompanied by a DJ (All Purpose's Michael Louw) and fiddler Elise Boeur. Once the contest is over much drinking and dancing is done into the wee hours. Click on the image below for more details.
Modeled after the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, but with a “Vancouver Twist”… Battle of the Bards is a unique Steve Duncan creation for the Vancouver Celtic Fest. Three actors will play poets W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas and Robert Burns (with me – Toddish McWong as Burns).
We will go on a pub crawl reciting poetry to (un)suspecting patrons starting at Doolin's Irish Pub at 5:30pm. Then we will go to Atlantic Trap and Gill for 6:05. Johnny Fox's Irish Snug at 6:45. Then the finale at Ceili's Irish Pub and Restaurant for 8pm, where we will be accompanied by a DJ and a celtic fiddler.
The judging will be done by Audience members holding up numbers, and I hope an applause meter.

Last week on Wednesday, I went to visit the Robert Burns statue in Stanley Park. It was my first visit since visiting as a child, when my father used to take me and my younger brother for regular outings to Stanley Park. This stature is located near the park entrance, across from the Vancouver Rowing Club.
Not being a complete expert or scholar on Robert Burns, I asked my friends in the Burns Club of Vancouver, as well as Ron MacLeod, Chair of the Scottish Cultural Studies program at Simon Fraser University for advice. They readily obliged:
From Dr. Ian Mason
From Ron MacLeod:
There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen
An’ custocks in Stra’bogie
Where ilka lad main hae his lass,
But I main hae my coggie.
For I main hae my coggie, sirs,
I canna want my coggie;
I wadna gie my three-girred cog
For a’ the wives in Bogie.