Designed by Leanne Riding, a graphic artist, she also paddles on the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team.  Leanne is also Eurasian, a living example of our Gung Haggis concept of interculturalism.  She is descended from Japanese Canadian WW2 internment survivors.
Leanne's portfolio website is http://coroflot.com/shamurokku

Download this poster to print at work… or send it to your friends!!!
11 x 17 posters available on request.

We are really happy that Leanne has designed our 2008 event poster.  It features bagpiper Joseph McDonald wearing the Lion Head mask, that has become a Gung Haggis Fat Choy icon when combined with a kilt. A very small picture of  Todd Wong can also be seen at the top left corner wearing the Lion head mask and playing accordion.

Celtic band Blackthorn is listed on the poster, along with Vancouver Poet Laureate George McWhirter, and the CBC documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy – which featured past tv clips about Gung Haggis Fat Choy.  There will be many Chinese-Canadian artists and performers that will be introduced as “surprises” + many other community performers and personalities.

Meet bagpiper Joseph MacDonald, who has performed at the past 7 years of Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners – photo Jaime Griffiths.

It's the 10th anniversary of Gung Haggis Fat Choy: Toddish MacWong's Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.

Expect lots of new surprises + some of the best moments from past Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners.

At the first dinner in 1998, 16 people dined on tables and chairs set up in a North Vancouver townhouse living room.  I cooked most of the dinner courses, and some people brought some food dishes as well.  We truly had no idea what we were doing.
In between each dinner course, somebody would read a poem or play some music.  There was no set program, except some photo-copied pages from a library book on how to organize a Burns dinner.  We made the rest up as we went along, or when the bagpiper arrived.  And it was BEAUTIFUL.

Will the same concept work for 400 people at the Floata Restaurant on Sunday, January 27th? Probably not… but we'll try…

For one thing… the food is much more organized.  The special “haggis dim-sum buffet” will greet our early arrivals soon after the 5:30 reception time… in time for the show time of 6:00pm.  Deep-fried haggis won-ton is our signature food dish.  We love it!  We will serve it with some of our favorite dim sum dishes for appetizers.

Floata Restaurant is one of Vancouver's best Chinese restaurants and is “the place” for banquet dinners.  It offers us a great stage and audio visual equipment. 

There will be video.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy was featured this summer in the CBC documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy.  Produced and directed by award winning Halya Kuchmij, the documentary celebrated the life of Rev. Chan Yu Tan – one of Canada's first Chinese-Canadian Christian missionaries, and his 6 generations of descendants including his great-great-grandson, Todd Wong aka Toddish McWong.  We will play some of the scenes from The Chan Legacy that feature Gung Haggis Fat Choy events.

There will be poetry.  George McWhirter is Vancouver's inaugural Poet Laureate.  But is he Irish or Scottish or Canadian?  Does it matter?  George loves the Gung Haggis concept and especially loves Todd's red waistcoat with golden Chinese dragons on it.  He wants one.

There will be music.  Traditional celtic band Blackthorn will make their Gung Haggis debut.  This is the band that opened the Kidsbook's Harry Potter book launch at Van Dusen Gardens back in July. Over the past few years, I have gotten to know some of the bands' members.  This is a great chance to bring us together on a stage together and have some great fun.  Just wait until you hear their renditions of Loch Lomand and Auld Lang Syne and other traditional Scottish songs!

That sounds great… a Scottish band, a Scottish-Irish-Canadian poet, and haggis won ton… anything Chinese?

That's where the surprises come in.  We are culling some of the best memorable moments of past Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners, adding some new ideas and new performers, then inviting the performers to be our guests… and PRESTO! they will spontaneously make their performance contributions to the dinner event.  Sounds great eh?  Easy… almost?

We do regret that performer Rick Scott and his buddy Harry Wong from Hong Kong will not be at the 2008 dinner.  That was a very memorable event in 2005 when they performed songs from their 5 Elements cd and CBC radio's Shelagh Rogers co-hosted the event.  We nabbed them on their way to a performance at the Toronto Music Conservatory. 

Then there was the time a Chinese bagpiper named Zhong Xi aka “Jonesy” came and performed not only bagpipes, but also a reed flute – making wonderful bird noises.

Back in 2003, keyboardist Pat Coventon and guitarist pd wohl led a spirited rendition of the Proclaimers' song “500 Miles”

Who can forget when opera soprano Heather Pawsey sang the traditional Chinese song Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower) with Silk Road Music duo of Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault in 2004?

Oh – and remember when accapella female ensemble The Shirleys came and performed their very cool arrangement of Mo Li Hua?

and last year… jazz singer Leore Cashe swung the tin pan alley classic “Chinatown My Chinatown” with Harry Aoki on stand up bass, and Todd Wong on accordion.

And how about when Joy Kogawa came and read a new story to an enraptured audience that included a character names “Toddish MacWong”?

Memorable moments all… but sorry we won't be re-presenting them.  There will be other surprises. As I say in my poem “What is Gung Haggis Fat Choy” – something old, something new, something borrowed, something b-r-e-w-e-d!

And then there are the guests… we always bring guests up on stage to read a few verses of Burns poetry.  Remember when Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, MLA's Jenny Kwan and Joy MacPhail read “A Man's A Man For A' That” – Jenny was wearing Joy's plaid, Joy wear Jenny's cheongsam, and Larry wore both a Chinese jacket and his kilt!

So watch out for the special surprises in 2008.  They are going to knock your kilted argyle socks off!

Sunday
January 27th
Doors open 5:30 pm
Dinner start 6:00 pm
Floata Restaurant
#400 – 180 Keefer St.
Vancouver Chinatown

Price:

Adult: $64.50

Student: $54.00

Children (13 and under): $43.50



Call Gung Haggis Fat Choy Productions at 604-987-7124 by January 20 to reserve a table for 10.


ORDER ON-LINE: WWW.TICKETSTONIGHT.CA


ORDER BY PHONE: 604.231.7535

Additional $2.50 per ticket for phone orders

ORDER your tickets SOON – to get the best seats…
Limited amount of tickets at door – if available – so please order in advance!

BEST BET – reserve a table of 10 and bring your friends!

2007 was good year for Chinese Canadians in Vancouver.  Here is part 2 of my list of Chinese-Canadians that inspired me in 2007.

Jen Sookfong Lee –
author of End of East.  It's an interesting read when the main
character Sammy Chan explores her Chinese head tax paying descendant
roots.  Jen got some great reviews nationally for her first book.  In May members of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team met Jen Sookfong Lee featured at CBC Radio Studio One Book Club.  Jen also appeared at the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival in the fall.  I didn't get to see her there, but I heard her delightful conversation with Shelagh Rogers on CBC Radio's “Sounds Like Canada.”


Margaret Gallagher – CBC radio and television host that is appearing everywhere on CBC!  Margaret hosts 690 to Go on
CBC Early Edition, co-hosting Flavour of the Week, and this week is
sitting in for Belle Puri on CBC radio.  She has also hosted stories on
Living Vancouver,
on CBC TV Vancouver.  Margaret has co-hosted and performed at past Gung
Haggis Fat Choy dinners and been featured in the St. Patrick's Day
Parade on our dragon boat float.  We started 2007 by attending the Centre A book launch of the hapa anthology “All Mixed Up” where Margaret did a reading.  Margaret also MCed the Canadian Club Vancouver's annual Order of Canada/Flag Day luncheon, which I help organize. She does a great job and we have asked her back for 2008.  Gee… and there was Margaret again as a host for the Anniversaries 07 Riot Walk recognizing the 100th anniversary of the anti-Asian riot in Chinatown and Japantown.  Margaret does great work for the community.

Karin Lee – film maker, creator of Comrade Dad.  Karin was also on the Anniversaries 07 Committee,
and curated regular film showings in Chinatown as part of the
Anniversaries 07 events.  I got to know her last in 2006 on the Head
Tax redress campaign.  In 2007, I invited her to be a speaker for the
Canadian Club Vancouver Asian Heritage Month luncheon.
Comrade Dad – Karin Lee's movie about her father.

Bill Wong – Modernize Tailors – the subject of two articles in the Vancouver Sun in 2007, and the subject of a CBC documentary Tailor Made
that premiered at Whistler Film Festival to a standing ovation. Bill
Wong runs Vancouver Chinatown's last tailor shop.  His son Steven
paddles on our dragon boat team.  I have known “Bill Wong the tailor”
for the last few years, but he has known my father “Bill Wong the sign
painter” for even longer.

Vicki Wong
– creator of 2010 mascots. I first met Vicki at the end of 2006 when I
bought her book The Octonauts & the Only Lonely Sea Monster.  In
2007 she published her second book The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade.  Read my article: You hate the Vanoc mascots now… but after meeting the Vancouver creator Vicky Wong – I think you will learn to love them!


Quatchi, Miga and
Sumi are names of the new Vanoc mascots for the 2010 Olympic Games.

  

Joseph Wu – origami master – Joseph appeared in the Vancouver Sun twice in 2007, and he did lots of media for the Pacific Coast Origami Conference.  Joseph can actually make a living by folding origami as demonstrated by his creations for Stolichnaya Vodka. 




Read my article:
Origami to “bend the mind” found at the Pacific Coast Origami Conference held in Vancouver
Yukiko Tosa and Joseph Wu stand in front of Saturday's Vancouver Sun article about the Pacific Coast Origami Conference.

Tricia Collins – actor – her one woman show Gravity astounds the senses – Tricia Collins takes the audience on a journey into her past and across two oceans.
I've known Tricia since 2002, but this was the year I got to see her do
some meaty roles in both Gravity and The Ecstasy of Rita Joe.


Tricia Collins in her one woman play “Gravity” – photo by Tim Matheson, used by permission of Rebus Creative

Click here:
See Chinese Canadians that inspired me in 2007 part I