Author Dan Seto and his dragon boat team buddies (l-r) Todd, Jen,
Stephen, Wendy, Jonas, Julie, Grace, Tzhe and Jeremy – photo courtesy
Grace
Dan Seto signs a copy of “Finding Memories, Tracing Routes” in
which he authored a story about his family – photo Grace Chow
Globe & Mail: “Head-tax Hip Hop” features Trevor Chan in Toronto
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Globe & Mail: “Head-tax Hip Hop” features Trevor Chan and No Luck Club in Toronto Head-tax hip hop
Trevor Chan and the No Luck Club created a hip hop / mash up, titled “Our Story” that
addresses the head tax issue, using actual historic sound bites that
were racist descriptions about keeping Canada “White” and about the
threat of the “Yellow Peril.” It is the 2006 equivalent version
of a protest song.
Earlier this year on January 14, I wrote about their musical/oratoria montage: “Our Story” head tax sound bites and turn table hip hop by No Luck Club
Now the Globe & Mail is writing about them, as they invade Toronto,
bringing the head tax issue to the ears of Toronto's hip hop and just
plain head tax hip culture.
Head-Tax Hip Hop
Special to the Globe and Mail
November 3, 2006
'We don't want Chinamen in Canada. This is a white man's country and white men will keep it so." The speaker's voice, sampled from our not-so-distant past, is but one of many shocking historic sound bites that Vancouver instrumental hip-hop trio No Luck Club spread throughout the cinematic beatscape of Our Story on their just-released album Prosperity.
Using found sound from old educational records and documentaries, No Luck Club's founding brothers Matt and Trevor Chan assembled a politicized "head-tax mash-up" about Canada's former anti-Chinese immigration policies.
"It's us. It's what we're about. It's our history. No one talks about it, but it happened," Trevor Chan explains. "[Our parents] have got their heads down -- they're just working, working, working. But we grew up in a multicultural society, so we're of the mind that you have to say something. What the hell? We're the only race this has happened to."
The Chan family was personally affected by the Chinese head tax and subsequent Exclusion Act. Beginning in 1885 -- after the completion of the railway, of course -- about 82,000 Chinese immigrants were charged up to $500, roughly two years wages, to enter Canada. Then, from 1923 to 1947, the government banned Chinese immigration altogether.
"Our family was separated by the Exclusion Act. Our great-grandfather was to come over and then bring his wife and kids, but you weren't allowed to bring your spouse over for decades," Chan says.
He notes that his parents didn't really "get" their hip-hop take on the topic: "They said "Oh, that's kind of interesting.' But what they did get was the press that surrounded it -- we actually had a lot of coverage in the Chinese media."
Head-tax redress has been a hot-button issue, especially in Vancouver, after two decades of protests finally earned an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the summer. The first three $20,000 compensation cheques went out on Oct. 20, but with the "symbolic" payments available only to the estimated 400 survivors and widows, rather than their descendants, the redress campaign continues.
When not providing the soundtrack for petition-signing parties, the Chan brothers and third member Paul Belen, a champion turntablist also known as DJ Pluskratch, have been struggling to get their music careers off the ground after their band name proved too apt.
While in high school back in 1989, the Chan brothers started their still-going-strong hip-hop radio show Straight No Chaser on Simon Fraser University's CJSF FM. Inspired by the cut 'n' paste sound collages of artists such as Coldcut and DJ Shadow, they eventually started recording their own music with Matt providing turntable cuts and scratches and Trevor working the laptop beats and samples. In 2000, they sent a demo to 75Ark, a well-respected American indie hip-hop label run by Dan (The Automator) Nakamura, best known for producing the first Gorillaz record.
"They got back to us a week later and said, 'Let's do something,' " Chan recalls. After signing a three-album contract, the brothers began working on a planned trilogy loosely based around the Chinese deities of good fortune.
But their luck proved fleeting when 75Ark folded the following year, just before their debut Happiness was set to drop. They found a new home with Ill Boogie Records, but soon after No Luck Club's first album finally came out in the fall of 2003, that label also closed its doors.
After adding DJ Paul Belen to their lineup in 2004, they got back to work on a follow-up album. But after so many label snafus, they decided to release Prosperity independently, although "it was a decision we made kicking and screaming, my friend."
This scratch-laden and beat-based sophomore opus further advances their virtuosic widescreen sound, bolstering their already eclectic retinue of jazz, funk, techno, classical and spy soundtrack samples with new Bollywood and Latin flavours.
Speaking of widening their geographic scope, the night after No Luck Club's CD release party at Toronto's Supermarket on Nov. 8, the trio will appear at the Rivoli to perform a world music show originally commissioned for the Vancouver Folk Festival.
"They probably thought we were going to take old folk records, throw on a drumbeat and start scratching over top," Chan says. "But we thought, 'Let's take our collage approach and expand it.' Usually we draw from funk and rock and electronic music, so we apply the same methods but take percussion from North Africa, combined with Indonesian gamelan music and throw in some Indian string instruments.
You create this crazy mess."
But though their album revels in Chinese culture through political sound bites and kung fu samples -- "people who watch Hong Kong films and know Cantonese might recognize some and be like, 'Oh my God, that's so badass' -- there's no Chinese instrumentation to be heard.
"This is something I really want to do, but I don't want to mess it up," Chan says. "Our grandfather and uncles do play traditional Chinese instruments so we did grow up listening to that. But I want to improve my production chops so that when we do create music using those elements, we're doing it a service rather than taking away from it," he says.
"We've got to represent."
No Luck Club plays a CD release party Nov. 8, 9 p.m., $6. Supermarket 268 Augusta Ave., 416-840-0501. The group plays a CBC Radio 3 taping Nov. 9, 8:30 p.m., $6. The Rivoli, 334 Queen St. W., 416-596-1908.
Jeff Chiba Stearns LIVE on MTV Canada starting Nov. 9th
Jeff Chiba Stearns LIVE on MTV Canada starting Nov. 9th
Jeff Chiba Stearns, film animator and creator of “What Are You Anyways?”, will be appearing on MTV Canada on Nov. 9th, Thursday 3:30pm PST, or 6:30pm EST.
Jeff recently won the inaugural award for Best Animated Short for the first annual Canadian Awards for Electronic and Animated Arts (CAEAA). We recently chatted when we bumped into each other at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival on last Saturday morning.
http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog/_archives/2006/9/18/2338517.html
Here is Jeff's message:
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted
to let you know that I will be in Toronto appearing live as a guest on
MTV Canada's show MTV LIVE this Thursday, Nov. 9th.
I will be discussing mixed-race and Hapa identity with a possible
focus on my animated film, “What Are You Anyways?” The inteview, which
will be around 3-5 minutes, airs nationally on MTV Canada at 3:30pm in
the west and 6:30pm in the east this Thursday. The show is an hour
long and I will appear sometime within that hour. The episode I am on
is repeated countless times throughout the night and on the weekend.
If you miss the first broadcast it will broadcast again later. The
show's topic is “Mash-ups” and if you're interested check it out.
Now, I just hope I don't get cut by some rapper.
-Jeff
Todd Wong with film directors Julia Kwan and Ham Tran at the VAFF karaoke party – photo Ray Shum
VAFF: Asian-Canadian or Canadian-Asian… and what about being mixed-race Canadian?
VAFF: Asian-Canadian or Canadian-Asian… and what about being mixed-race Canadian?
Vancouver Asian Film Festival,
continues to celebrate it's 10th anniversary by asking provocative
questions about identity, and exploring the qualities of Asian-ness
through the eyes of immigrants or through multi-generational Canadians
of mixed races parentage.
Saturday morning's program, Canadian Asian vs. Asian Canadian: Politically Correct Labels, featured films
Canadian-Chinese by Felix Cheng, and Between: Living in the Hyphen by
Anne-Marie Nakagawa, plus a panel discussion featuring UBC English
Assistant Professor Glenn Deer, author/editor Alexis Kienlen, UBC
English instructor Chris Lee, and Georgia Straight editorial assistant
Craig Takeuchi.
The films each explored sensitive topics of identity.
Canadian-Chinese explored the relationship of language to first and
second generation immigrants, as director Felix Cheng interviewed his
parents and friends about the process of learning to speak Chinese and
his resistance of it when he was younger. Cheng said he did this
film as a project while attending Emily Carr Schol of Art and
Design. His parents immigrated from Hong Kong, when Cheng was
still two years old, and didn't learn English fully because they were
focussed on providing for the family. Felix says he basically
grew up with his older brother watching English television
programming.
Through the interviews with his parents, it is apparent that they have
a different perspective of him growing up and not wanting to lear to
speak Chinese, then he does. He is now questioning himself and
his identity, as he converses with a friend who came to Canada at age
six. It is an intimate look at the schism between immigrant
parents and their children as they come to grips with the children
wanting to fit in more with Canadian society, at the risk of creating a
communication gap with their parents. At one point, Cheng shows
moving pictures of his parents interacting and talking without sound,
highlighting the inability to understand the Chinese language…
imagining for the audience what it must be like to be unable at times
to communicate with his parents.
Ann-Marie Nakagawa has created a beautiful lush film about the personal
issues of growing up mixed race. She spoke to the audience that
Canadian and Hollywood films have addressed mixed-race relationships
but never really about the children who grow up in such unions, and the
issues that they have to face, sometimes ostracized from one culture or
the other, or both.
Nakagawa found a variety of celtic-First Nations, Indo-German,
Carribean-Caucasian, African-Caucasian, Chinese-Irish-Scottish-Swedish
subjects for her interviews by word of mouth, she told the
audience.
Poet Fred Wah, the poet / retired University of Calgary Engish professor is featured in Between: Living in the Hyphen, a National Film Board film. He speaks
about growing up mixed-race, and finding his own place in a Canada that
initially wanted to homogenize everybody into a White Anglo-Saxon
culture during the 1950's when he grew up. Several other
interview subjects discuss growing up as products of racial hybridity,
and how they move between the ethnic cultures of either parent, as well
as mainstream White Canada.
Nakagawa proves herself to be a gifted filmaker both in presentation
and subject material. Over a period of three years, she got to
know the interview subjects to the point where they trusted her enough
to share intimate and personal stories of race and prejudice.
Some feel they are as Canadian as can be, while others share that
because of the way they look, they will always be questioned as to
their ethnic origin, as the traditional stereotype “Canadian standard”
is white, blond with blue eyes. Nakagawa plays this challenge to
great effect by utilizing the famous “I am Canadian” Molson beer
commercial rant, which featured a good looking caucasian male.
It is an interesting must-see film that seeks to legitimize mixed-race
as a valid cultural identity within the mosaic of Canadian
multiculturalism, while challenging the the pigeon-hole process of
ethnic labeling.
The following panel discussion was lively. It included
perspectives that were honest, academic, casual, immigrant
-based, multi-generational, and prarie-informed. Each panelist
described themselves and their interests in relation to the themes of
identity and labeling. Kienlen said she used the term mixed race,
because that is what she is. While many of the Nakagawa's
subjects grew up as solitary mixed race individuals, she grew up with
her mother who is half-Chinese.
Takeuchi says he describes himself as 4th generation Japanese Canadian,
because it is important to demonstrate the relationship to the
internment. Lee said he felt he was the newcomer to the
group because his parents were immigrants, and because of that he
doesn't have all the familial history that the other panelists carry.
Festival founder and president Barb Lee shared she came up with the
theme of Asian Canadian vs Asian Canadian on a car trip in Eastern
United States with her sister. They argued about the usage of the
word forms. Her sister stated she was Canadian Asian because she
wanted to emphasize her Canadianess by putting Canadian before
Asian. Glenn Deer pointed out that the word “Canadian” is really
a noun, denoting a country and a culture, so that Asian Canadian is the
more correct term.
Personally, I feel that both forms of usage are valid, but Asian
Canadian denotes a Canadian of Asian heritage, where Canadian Asian
will more likely describe an immigrant Asian who has come to
Canada. Felix Cheng's film's subjects were Canadian Asians, born
in Hong Kong, who became naturalized Canadians. Nakagawa's film
included Fred Wah a Canadian of diverse ethnic ancestry who can be
included in the group of Asian Canadians.
Busy Weekend: Friday Night Canadian Club Gala, Saturday VAFF, Sat night Gonzo theatre
Busy Weekend: Friday Night Canadian Club Gala, Saturday VAFF, Sat night Gonzo theatre
This weekend was very busy. Reviews of these events will be up as soon as I can.
Canadian Club Vancouver 100 year anniversary Gala was on Friday night, November
3rd. I am a board member, and am enjoying the friendship and
networking of these wonderful people devoted to helping make Canada
proud and recognizing our achievements as a nation and as a
culture. The event was at the Westin Bayshore, and featured a
keynote by Lt. Governor Iona Campagnolo, history of the Canadian Club,
dance demonstration from Dancesport BC, and the Dal Richards Orchestra.
It was a great fun evening that celebrated the history of the club, 100
years ago. Of course it was great for networking… But the
surprise feature was the re-patriation of the Richardson bagpipes from
Scotland, organized by Canadian Club Vancouver past-president Andrew
Winstanley, with an introduction told by Patrick Reid. MC was
club member Cam Cathcart, an ex-CBC news reporter/producer.
Vancouver Asian Film Festival, Saturday morning program featured films
Canadian-Chinese by Felix Cheng, and Between: Living in the Hyphen by
Anne-Marie Nakagawa, plus a panel discussion featuring UBC English
Assistant Professor Glenn Deer, author/editor Alexis Kienlen, UBC
English instructor Chris Lee, and Georgia Straight editorial assistant
Craig Takeuchi.
The films each explored sensitive topics of identity.
Canadian-Chinese explored the relationship of language to first and
second generation immigrants, as director Felix Cheng interviewed his
parents and friends about the process of learning to speak Chinese and
his resistance of it when he was younger.
Poet Fred Wah, was featured in Between: Living in the Hyphen, speaking
about growing up mixed-race, and finding his own place in a Canada that
initially wanted to homogenize everybody into a White Anglo-Saxon
culture during the 1950's when he grew up. Several other
interview subjects discuss growing up as products of racial hybridity,
and how they move between the ethnic cultures of either parent, as well
as mainstream White Canada.
Saturday Night, we went to see the theatre play Gonzo. British
internees are housed in a Japanese prison of war camp in Shanghai,
China, and cared for a Japanese soldier named Gonzo. Written and
directed by Gordon Pascoe, who grew up in the Ash prison of war camp in
Shanghai. This play was based on his memories of actual
events.
It is a lovely play that celebrates human kindness amongst the horrific
circumstances of WW2. Pascoe finds a way to intertwine the
evacuation of Jews from Europe to China, the internment of
Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia, the pivotal war battles in
Africa, Europe and the Pacific into the tiny confines of a camp housing
British women and children.
VAFF on Saturday: DISTANT RELATIONS features Karin Lee film “Comrade Dad”
VAFF on Saturday:
DISTANT RELATIONGS features Karin Lee film “Comrade Dad”
More at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival:
Check out Saturay's programming at VAFF.
My
friend Karin Lee is featured for the program Distant Relations, with
her film Comrade Dad. Karin is an amazing person, winning a
Canadian Academy (Genie) Award for Made in Canada (2000), a story about
adopted babies from China in Canada. She also made Canadian Steel, Chinese Grit
(1998) a historical documentary about the Chinese who helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Sat. Nov. 4th, 1:30 PM
Families
shape who we are—and how we exist in time and space. This collection of
films looks at women and men, children and parents, and the way in
which these relations are configured by generation, geography,
politics, and custom.
Father And Son
Director/Writer/Producer: Joe Chang
Animation | Beta | Colour | 2006 | 5 minutes | Canada
Joe Chang’s animated short film draws inspiration from his 6-year old
son and his perceptions of the process of bonding between parent and
child. With humour and sentiment, it hopes to draw people’s attention
to the extraordinary moments in our otherwise ordinary lives.
Canadian Premiere
Comrade Dad
Director/Writer/Producer: Karin Lee
Documentary | Beta | Colour | 2005 | 26 minutes | Canada
Karin Lee’s father ran a Communist bookstore on Vancouver’s Skid Row
from the mid-1960’s until the early 1980’s. Her experimental
documentary twists the memories of a socialist-raised child into the
reflections of an adult who is conflicted over the schism between
idealism and capitalism.
Director in Attendance
62 Years And 6,500 Miles
Director/Writer/Producer: Anita Wen-Shin Chang
Documentary | Beta | Color | 2005 | 52 minutes | USA
Anita Chang’s grandmother was an award-winning writer and an activist
with the Taipei Women’s Rights Organization. This biographical
documentary looks at the challenges of constructing history, both the
personal history of Ama and the political history of post-colonial,
globalized Taiwan.
Canadian Premiere
The Women’s Kingdom
Director/Writer/Producer: Xialoi Zhou
Documentary | Beta | Colour | 2005 | 21 minutes | USA
The Mosuo are a minority tribe who live by a beautiful lake in
Southwestern China. They are known as the last matriarchal society in
China because of their 1,000 year old practice of “walking marriage”.
Mosuo men walk into the rooms of women at night, and leave at daybreak.
In Mosuo, women don’t depend on men for money, and fathers don’t live
with their children. Many tourists have started to visit the Mosuo
because they believe it is a “free love” society. Tourism has brought
the Mosuo wealth, but it has also changed their culture. What kinds of
dilemmas are the Mosuo now struggling with, and how do they feel about
the future?
Canadian Premiere
Celebrity Host for this program:
Kameron Louangxay
A graduate of the UBC Theatre Department, Kaeron has spent the past 2
years in Toronto and currently calls Vancouver home. Past and recent
work includes 16 Blocks, Mayday, the Canadian film short, Comrade Mine, and Mina Shum’s Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity.
We So Funny: Asian Canadian comedy at VAFF – how to have fun with steotypes
We So Funny: Asian Canadian comedy at VAFF
– how to have fun with stereotypes
Friday night should be real good at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. It is the We So Funny program about Asian Canadian humor.
Friday, Nov. 3rd at 9:30pm.
The event will explore how comedy is a
powerful vehicle by which we can comment on social issues of race and
culture. Gee… sounds like a perfect setting for Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Below is from the VAFF website for We So Funny
We So Funny
Fri. Nov. 3rd, 9:30 PM
Mighty Warriors Of Comedy
Director/Writer: Sung H. Kim | Producers: Kibi Anderson, Sung H. Kim
Documentary | Beta | Colour | 2006 | 65 minutes | USA
MIGHTY WARRIORS OF COMEDY is a unique documentary about the 18 Mighty
Mountain Warriors, an audacious sketch comedy troupe of Asian-Pacific
Islanders hailing from San Francisco that you’ve never heard of. Formed
in 1994, they tackle socio-political issues with a hilarious
combination of irreverence and seriousness, taking their audiences on a
wild ride as they showcase the cultural activism behind the humor. The
film explores whether or not, after 10 years of performing the group
will make it big. Using a combination of personal interviews and live
concert footage, the film traces the struggle that Asian-heritage
artists face, and how that battle is complicated further by cultural
identification.
Canadian Premiere
preceded by:
Assaulted Fish (A live performance)
Writers/Performers: Diana Bang, Marlene Dong, Kuan Foo, Darcy Johnson, Yumi Ogawa, Nelson Wong
Live performance | 20 minutes | In person | Canada
In a scant three years, the 83% Pan-Asian Canadian comedy collective
known as ASSAULTED FISH has established itself as one of Vancouver’s
funniest acts with intelligent, edgy writing and energetic, polished
performances. Everything from birth to reincarnation is fair game for
comedy sketches that range from well-observed character studies to
absurdist slapstick.
Ruckus!
Director: Dean Ishida | Producers: Dean Ishida, Matt Steverson | Writers: Dean Ishida, Eric Bronson
Narrative | Beta | Colour | 2006 | 18 minutes | USA
It’s now or never as 32-year-old Clint sets out to fulfill his noble
yet misguided boy band dream. As the group leader and choreographer of
RUCKUS! Clint must prepare his out-of-touch group of 30-something men –
prickly prep school drama teacher Stan, hefty hip-hop wannabe Vern, and
rhythmless cat groomer J.D. – for the music video shoot of their debut
song She’s Online (And I’m Outta My Mind).
Director in Attendance
Celebrity Host for this program:
Rick Tae
2006 Gemini nominee and Leo Award winner for Godiva’s, Rick can now be seen on CBC’s new hit, Chris Haddock’s Intelligence. Writer and co-creator of TV series Sasha, Brie and Me,
currently in development, Rick and partner, Selena Paskalidis, are now
working with the National Screen Institute’s Totally Television
Program, which is designed to guide Canada’s top emerging showrunners.
Mina Shum at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival + Special filmmakers karaoke
Mina Shum at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival
Mina Shum: A Writer’s Journey
Wed. Nov. 1st, 7:00 PM
It was an inquistive audience at the Mina Shum presentation for the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. They had come a special event Shum first showed a clip from her first film “Mom, Ramona and Me,” and talked about her experiences developing the films, and how the themes were developed for her subsequent films.
She also showed clips from “Double Happiness” and “Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity which featured award winning actor Sandra Oh – currently part of the television acting ensemble of “Grey's Anatomy. Shum explained her recipes for story arcs and feature films.
“Present the main ideas and characters in the opening, so the audience has an idea where the film is going. Create 5 to 6 segments that rise and fall, each with a climax.
Shum demonstrated how the characters created the story lines. “For Double Happiness, we had the character Jade Li in the middle of the poster, with her boyfriend on one side, and her parents on the other. This summed up the movie.
“People are intested in cross-cultural stories… but that alone doesn't sell movies. My movies are billed as romantic comedy.”
She also shared that this was her first big outing in a while, “I just had a baby seven weeks ago, so this is the first big event I've been out to.
Sharing her screenwriting tools and tips,
and using clips from her films, Shum will examine what it takes to turn
an idea into a successful screenplay.
Shum took a number of questions from the audience and gave good advice to people asking how to develop screen plays and how to get involved in the movie industry.
Todd Wong with film makers Julia Kwan and Ham Tran at VAFF Karaoke party – photo Ray Shum
At the conclusion of the event, the audience was invited to come to a party event at Hoko's Sushi on Powell Street. At the restaurant I talked with VAFF executive director Peter Leung, who said “This is incredible! People coming out on a Wednesday evening,” as we watched actors and directors and writers all performing karaoke, singing along and dancing together.
“After the event ended for the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon, we couldn't get them to leave the place. They all kept wanting to talk. This event tonight is a great ice-breaker. So now, when they are on a panel discussion or see each other at the screening events, they can say 'I liked that song you sang, or that costume you had.'”
Costumes and songs? There was an tickle trunk full of costumes and accessories that the VAFF crowd dressed up in, full of day-after-Halloween spirit. Leung was wearing a McDonald's happy day apron going around asking people “Would you like fries with that.” Videographer Kathy Leung was given long evening gloves to wear, then later was handed a crinoline style skirt to complete the elegant ensemble. Actor Rick Tae had little cat ears on his head. Director of the opening night film, Journey From the Fall, Ham was wearing a viking helmet with horns. Julia Kwan (director of Eve and the Fire Horse) was wearing a jester hat. I found a witch's hat and gown and pronounced myself a wizard.
Actor Taylaa Markwell won a prize for her duet with Rick Tae for “Summer Nights.” Lucas Walker sang a great version of Doobie Brothers' “Listen to the Music,” Ham and Julia were part of an ensemble singing Dan Hill's “Sometimes When We Touch.” And me in my wizard/witch costume? I sang Frank Sinatra's “Witchcraft.”
It was a great event with lots of great food. VAFF puts on some of the BEST parties! Opening Night on Thursday followed by Opening Night reception for their 10th Anniversary!