Kilts are ironed now…
Maple Leaf and the Hunting Fraser. I have't decided which one I will wear yet. I will have to pick up some new socks in Victoria at the Tartan Shop on Government St.
It's getting very exciting. In seven Hours we will be at Government House for the 2pm ceremony. In 4 1/2 hours we will be at the BC Royal Museum checking out a photo of Gung Haggis Fat Choy in “The Party” exhibit, and a life size photo of Joy Kogawa that we took last summer.
Going to Victoria to see the Queen's representative…
and receive the BC Community Achievement Award
Okay it's finally sinking in…. I am going to receive a wonderful honour from Lt. Gov. Stephen Point and Premier Gordon Campbell. The BC Community Achievement Award is recognizing my many years of community service, most notably my work in promoting Asian Canadian arts and literature, my multicultural work through the creation of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner which also inspired a CBC Vancouver television performance special and the SFU Gung Haggis Fat Choy Festival, and most importantly – helping to save the childhood home of author Joy Kogawa and turn it into a writing centre and literary and historical landmark.
I have also served as a Terry's Team member, cancer survivors who serve as living examples that cancer research has helped to make a difference, by speaking at Terry Fox Runs and elementary schools since 1993. And I have also helped to develop the dragon boat racing community not only by coaching many different teams, especially my own Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team that has been featured in many news stories and documentaries about multiculturalism, but also by serving on the Alcan Dragon Boat race committee, the CCC Dragon Boat Association and helping to found the Vancouver International Taiwanese Dragon Boat Race in 2003.
There are some incredible people who are among this year's 45 award recipients. I am very pleased to find my friend Judy Caldwell named. She is an inspirational to many breast cancer survivors, as she helped to found the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and was a founding paddler on the Abreast in a Boat dragon boat team. Judy and I also both work at the Vancouver Public Library.
Fellow North Vancouverite Gordon Barrett is founding pipe major for the BC Regiment's Irish Pipes and Drums. Patrick Reid always invites one of their bagpipers to special events for the Canadian Club Vancouver.
Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling are co-founders of the Vancouver
Moving Theatre, which does incredible work creating artistic productions and telling the stories of and for the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, especially through the Heart of the City Festival for which Terry is executive director. For the inaugural festival, I was a story teller for a special event bringing Chinese Canadian and First Nation people to share stories.
We will be travelling on the
9am ferry to Swartz Bay with my parents and my nominator David Kogawa,
and hopefully Joy Kogawa. We will be going to the BC Royal Museum to
meet another Vancouver East End raised boy… Gary Geddes – who will be
receiving the Lt. Gov. Literary Achievement Award at the BC Book Prizes
in Vancouver on Saturday April 26.
Gee…. now I have to get my hair cut. What am I going to wear? 2007 Community Achievement Award winner Dr. Kerry Jang tells me I should wear my kilt!
Check out the other recipients of the 2008 awards:
CBC is helping to celebrate 150 years of BC history. There is a website collecting family stories and pictures
Check it out: http://www.cbc.ca/bc/features/150/your-story.html
The 60th wedding anniversary of Rev. and Mrs. Chan Yu Tan (holding flower bouquet), August 15th 1934.
I have submitted a short story about my great-great-grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan:
Rev. Chan Yu Tan ministered to the Chinese pioneers who built the railroad, searched for gold, as well as became shop keepers and labourers in Vancouver Chinatown, Victoria Chinatown, and later Nanaimo and New Westminster, where he eventually retired. The Chinese Methodist Church also helped teach English. Rev. Chan Yu Tan emphasized learning Canadian ways, and it showed in his family. His son Jack loved playing golf, and eventually became the first Chinese Canadian to serve on jury duty. His youngest son Luke became an actor in Hollywood. The sons of daughters Rose and Kate – Victor Wong, Daniel Lee, Howard Lee and Leonard Lee, enlisted in the Canadian armed forces during WW2, eventually helped to gain Chinese-Canadians the vote in 1947, and later help organize the Chinese Canadian veterans associations.
Rev. Chan Yu Tan’s great-grand daughter Rhonda Lee Larrabee became Chief of the Qayqayt First Nations Band, and subject of the NFB film “Tribe of One”. Another great-grand daughter Janice Wong, became an internationally known artist and author of the book CHOW from China to Canada. a memoir book of family history and recipes from her father’s restaurant.
Our family history has been an integral part of Chinese-Canadian history, and I have recently addressed the cross-ethnic fusion of culture and marriage with my event Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a mixture of Robbie Burns and Chinese New Year. There have been inter-ethnic marriages in every generation of our family – each of my maternal cousins have married non-Chinese.
I helped to tell the story of our family’s 7 generational BC history, in the CBC documentary Generations: The Chan Legacy . http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/generations
This picture is at Rev. and Mrs. Chan Yu Tan’s 60th wedding anniversary in New Westminster. 4 generations are included in this picture.
Saturday Night in Vancouver…. what to do
We went to the BC Book Prizes Soiree, held this year at the swanky Metropolitan Hotel, home to Diva Restaurant. All the nominated authors for the 2008 BC Book Prizes were there, and it was announced that Gary Geddes was being awarded the 5th Annual Lt. Governorès Award for Literary Achievement. Gary wasnèt there as he lives outside of Victoria and will be there next week for the BC Book Prizes Gala. But attending were other award nominees such as Meg Tilly and Mike McCardle.
Upon arrival, I quickly found myself saying greetings to authors Rita Wong and Hiromi Goto. Rita is nominated for the poetry prize for her work Forage, published by Nightwood. Hiromi was recently the writer in resident for the Vancouver Public Library.
I quickly spotted my girlfriend Deb, and we went over to say hello to author Shaena Lambert, nominated for her novel Radiance, and George McWhirter – still the current Vancouver Poet Laureate. It was a pleasure to see Lorna, who is Shaenaès Aunt, whom I have met at events for the PAL Vancouver. Shaena had read at the November 10th event for Joy Kogawa House, and George will be reading a Joy Kogawa House this coming Friday on April 25th.
Jas Jhooty is the new marketing coordinator for Ricepaper Magazine, and Leanne Riding is the new co-president (with me), for Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. I introduced them to a few people such as Ray of Vancouver Co-Op Books. I picked up Soucouyant by David Chariandy, nominated for fiction prize.
I introduced Jas and Leanne to Rita Wong, she pointed out David Chariandy, so I went over to say hello. I introduced myself, as I asked if Soucouyant dealt with inter-racial relationships, and I explained how I write about intercultural topics on my blog www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com. Both David and his wife Sophie, who both exclaimed that they were fans of Gung Haggis Fat Choy – the concept. David is of Caribbean and South Asian descent and said that many Caribbeans are very mixed. Sophie, who is of Scottish ancestry, said that Davidès grandmother had some Chinese ancestry.
Ann-Marie Metten came by holding up the brand new copy of Ricepaper Magazine. Ann-Marie is on the board for BC Book Prizes, as well as ACWW and the executive director for Joy Kogawa House. I had made a big push for Ricepaper Magazine staffers to attend. Editor Aaron Leaf had come by with a bag of Ricepaper Magazines, giving some to Ann-Marie as an advance copy. I opened it up, and quickly saw excerpts from Rita Wongès poetry collection. I dragged Ann-Marie over to introduce her to Rita. I held up the pages with Ritaès name and poetry on it to show Rita. She was surprised to see them in Ricepaper and excited! Ann-Marie graciously offered the copies to Rita.
As always there are great silent auction items available for bidding. I made my way over to the tables where I found author KC Dyer holding up a camera. She said she was taking pictures for her blog. I shared with her that I had taken pictures at last yearès BC Book Prizes for my blog, and that BC Book Prizes liked the pictures so much they used them for their website. KC s face lit up when I told her that my blog was www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com. We exchanged URLs and I asked her to send me some pictures because I forgot my camera.
There was another wonderful large dragon puppet donated by the BCLA. I was looking for the bidding sheet when I became involved with a converstation with write Nan Gregory. the author of the wonderful childrenès book How Smudge Came. Nan quickly found me the bidding sheet. Later in the evening, I showed her the new green dragon puppet being added to my collection. Nan sparkles with energy, and I remember meeting her many years ago while I worked at the West Point Grey Library. Note to self – must remember to call Nan up for a chat.
Gary Geddes winner of the 5th annual Lt. Gov Literary Achievment Award – courtesy of BC Book Prizes
Gary Geddes is a facinating man. He would be a fitting literary figure to speak at a Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner event.
Gary Geddes is descended from Scottish ancestors from the Northern tip of Scotland. He wrote me: “Just Scots fisherfolk from the north coast who fished in Orkney waters
for herring, until they were all fished out. Then they came over here
and did the same nasty thing to the salmon. The family name comes from
the ged, a North Atlantic sea pike. The people of the geds, totem
animal and all that. Nasty little bite they have, too.”
He also has a fascination with things Asian. Nevermind the 1421 voyage of Chinese admiral Zheng He Gary Geddes has written The Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things (HarperCollins, 2005), an entertaining and philosophical travelogue of about the Chinese or Afghan monk named Huishen, who might have reached the west
coast of North America about 1,000 years before Columbus. Geddes traveled to the Himalayas, the Taklamakan Desert and Central
America (where Huishen is most likely to have landed, according Chinese
archives).
Gary also has written poetry collections titled The Terracotta Army (1985), and
I Didn't Notice the Mountain Growing Dark (Cormorant, 1986)- translations of Li Pai and Tu Fu, with the assistance of George Liang.
Probably the first time I came across his work was his anthology 15 Canadian Poets. I either shelved it at the Vancouver Public Library or studied it taking poetry or Canadian literature classes at Capilano College. But it was a few years ago that our paths actually converged. Gary was writer-in-residence for the Vancouver Public Library, where I was working at the information desk. Somehow we connected, and we soon were setting appointments to attend events and have a meeting.
Gary shared with me his role in creating Canada's first anthology of Asian-Canadian literature, Many Mouthed Birds. He had a connection with grants and publishers and shared the connection with Jim Wong-Chu, co-editor of the anthology.
Through his many anthologies, his own writings, and his roles as teacher, mentor and community activist, Gary Geddes has created his own indelible mark on both BC and Canadian literary landscape. He has taught at Concordia Univiersity and the Creative Writing School of UBC, as well as being a Distinguised Professor of Candian Culture at Western Washington University in Bellingham Washington. Last year he received an honourary Doctorate of Laws from Royal Roads University in BC.
Here is the Press Release from BC Book Prizes
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE – April
19, 2008
Vancouver
Gary Geddes named recipient of the fifth annual
Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary
Excellence
Vancouver, BC – The West Coast Book Prize Society is proud to
recognize Gary Geddes as the
recipient of the fifth annual Lieutenant
Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. British
Columbia ’s Lieutenant Governor, the Honourable
Steve n Point, will present the award at the
Lieutenant Governor’s BC Book Prizes Gala to be held at the Fairmont
Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver
on April 26, 2008. The event will be hosted by
broadcaster Fanny Kiefer.
“From 15 Canadian
Poets to Skookum Wawa
to 20th Century Poetry and Poetics,
Gary Geddes has raised the literary profile of both our province and nation,
and has long been considered one of
Canada ’s most important men
of letters. He has given decades of his life to teaching Canadian literature
and the craft of writing as well as working as a university professor,
writer-in-residence, critic, anthologist, translator, editor, and most
importantly, writer. Gary Geddes’ writings have crossed countries and
continents in performance and translation. He has received numerous awards,
including the E. J. Pratt Medal, a
Canadian Authors Association prize, two Archibald Lampman awards, and the
Gabriela Mistral Prize for service to literature and the people of
Chile .
His work as a poet has been generous in its outward-looking gaze. His poems
bring song and light into darkened corners of the human experience, document
silent and hidden lives, and enter politics through the individual and the
personal. His newest book of poems, Falsework,
explores the 1958 collapse of Vancouver ’s
Second Narrows
Bridge . His meditative
memoir Sailing Home: A Journey Through Time,
Place and Memory (2001) chronicles his return to the West Coast with
a deep sense of awe and gratitude for the beauty, wildness, and history of this
place. In whatever genre he pursues, Gary Geddes writes with eloquence and
intense awareness of mystery within the commonplace, and the single human voice
singing inside the crowd. He tells the truth, in all its rawness and splendour.
For the integrity of his creative work, for his active and
generous promotion of other writers, and for the words he has given to help map
the literary geography of British
Columbia , we proudly celebrate Gary Geddes.”
–
Jury member Carla Funk
The jury
for this year’s Lieutenant Governor’s Award: Carla
Funk , poet laureate for the city of Victoria;
Margaret Reynolds ,
executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of BC; and Mel Bolen,
owner of Bolen Books, Victoria.
All BC Book Prizes info at www.bcbookprizes.ca
Media Contact:
Karen Green ,
Rebus Creative: 604.687.2405, ext. 21, karen@rebuscreative.com
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This sounds like an incredible concert! World Music in a bottle marked Vancouver World Music Collective.
And I know and have performed with many of the featured musicians. Silk Road Music's Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault have performed at Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner & First Night events since 2004. In the past few years I have become a big fan or Orchid Ensemble's Lan Tung, as she plays her erhu.
Pepe Danza plays with Andre and Qiu Xia in the group Joutou which mixes French Canadian and Celtic with Chinese music styles. I love Amy Stephen's accordion playing with Mad Pudding. And then add in all the other brilliant performers and styles from all over the world such as Khac Chi's Vietnamese stylings or the latin and african rhythms of their fellow World Music Collective musicians.
Too bad, I can't skip dragon boat practice on Sunday to attend. I'd be there otherwise!
Music for a New World
Sunday, April 20
2 pm
From the Centennial Theatre website
This incredible collaboration brings together 17 of Vancouver’s best
world music artists in a one of a kind partnership in which influences
from around the world mix into a melting pot of sights and sounds.
Centred on a spirit of cooperation and collaboration, Music for a New World celebrates the diversity of world music.
Members include Amir Haghighi, Jou Tou, Khac Chi, the Masabo Culture
Company, Orchid Ensemble, Silk Road and Tzimmes. Together their music
draws from Quebecois, Uruguayan, Irish, Chinese, Vietnamese, West
African and Jewish roots. Performances include everything from ancient
traditional music, to jazz, Celtic, several Latin styles, contemporary
songs, as well as new music. It is an astounding collection of
experience and ability.
Join the celebration and experience the diversity and excitement of this unique musical event!
Music for a New World is presented in cooperation with the Vancouver International Children's Festival http://www.childrensfestival.ca/
Music for a New World is presented in association with the
North Shore Multicultural Society www.nsms.ca
Check out the Vancouver Sun Article:
The sun is expected to peek out for Sunday – while the chance of flurries is also expected.
It's snowing on the North Shore right now, after some hail this afternoon.
BUT….
Last Sunday was soooo much fun with two boats out, doing sprint races
side by side. Expect more fun and practices like this as more people
come out.
SUNDAY APRIL 20th
1:30pm
Dragon Zone
Creekside Park @ Science World
bring your windbreaker and a cap… (for the sun 🙂
Next week is our video taping and special coaching session with Kamini Jain. April 27th,
We have had 18 practices so far…
It is one month / 4 weeks until our first race at Lotus Sports Club Bill Alley Memorial Regatta, on May 17th,
We have have been filmed by 2 news crews, Global TV News and City TV Breakfast Television.
We
have had 32 experienced paddlers out and at least 12 rookies…. and 3
signed up and paid veteran paddlers still missing in action.
Some paddlers are opting to skip Alcan Race, so we will have one good team for Alcan with a mix of veterans and a few rookies.
We are welcoming our new paddlers and will give them priority for our next races, as we continue to build a second team. In the next few weeks, we would like to identify and prioritize our racers for each race.
It is 8 weeks until Rio Tinto Alcan
Dragon Boat Festival
Wednesday night, I attended the managers/captains meeting with Stephen Mirowski, Steven Wong, Stuart Mackinnon and Pash Brar.
There
will be no 50+ race. It was dropped because there weren't enough
entries (they needed 6) Last year Gung Haggis & Friends entered and
came 4th, just a second out of 3rd place.
The actual Racer's
village and festival site is undecided because of construction, but the
race course will still be exactly the same, with boats finishing
towards the North East corner of False Creek.
Race format is the same as last year – 32 teams in Comp. 64 teams in upper Rec, and 32 teams in lower Rec/Novice.
With
combined paddlers from CC Dragons and Gung Haggis Fat Choy + other
experienced paddlers + keener rookies, I see us improving over last
year's performance in the Lower rec/Novice division. The boat feels
strong and smooth with the experienced paddlers. The rookies are
learning fast.
Let's get out and fill the boat for practices, and make it to the middle of the Upper Rec division.
See you SUNDAY!!!!
Todd
One of the original members of the E Street Band, Federici was more known for playing organ for both studio recordings and live concerts. His organ solo was a highlight on Springsteen's first top ten hit “Hungry Heart” from “The River” album.
“Danny and I worked together for 40 years – he was the most wonderfully fluid
keyboard player and a pure natural musician. I loved him very much…we
grew up together.” wrote Bruce Springsteen on his website http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html
I just emailed my accordionista friends Rowan Lipkovits and Bruce Triggs, hosts of Accordion Noir radio show on Co-Op Radio. I am hoping they will do a spot light tribute for Federici on their radio show tonight 9:30pm to 10:30pm CFRO FM 102.7. Check out: Accordion Noir Co-op Radio
Check
out the official Bruce Springsteen web page for a video tribute of
Danny Federici playing his accordion solo during “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”
http://brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html
Danny Ferderici on how he started playing accordion:
from http://www.chorusandverse.com/content/200206/20020616_DannyFederici01.htm
I started off as a classical accordion player when I
was seven years old. And, my mother basically pulled me around by my ear and
showed me off to the neighbors. I had a whole little career going. I think
she wanted me to be friends with Wayne Newton and play the Vegas thing, you
know? And be the snazzy accordion virtuoso kind of guy. But I was real good
at a real young age. And then, when I turned into my early teens, she was
kind of like my stage mom. She kind of rented a place, a local hall in the
town. Got a couple of musicians together for me to play with, and we had a
little rock n’ roll band. And, I was playing the accordion and it wasn’t
going over. I say it wasn’t going over … the girls weren’t digging it.
Then, I bought this thing called the Cordovox. Which was
way back when they had an accordion that sounded like an organ. You didn’t
have to squeeze it. You could just turn it on its side and play the keys
like an organ. And I use to turn it over on my amp. And then I could stand
up and I could move around. And that was definitely a big hit with the
ladies, that made it a whole lot better.
So that’s pretty much how the transition happened. But, as
I say, I studied probably eight or ten years classical accordion. Reading
and writing and going to a conservatory in Philadelphia. I was pretty much
on my way to do this classical accordion thing, until the Beatles and
Rolling Stones and all that stuff just hit. I ended up having a professor
come into my school, who was sitting in for another professor. He said,
‘Just sit back, I wanna play something for you.’ And he played me jazz and
blues on the accordion. I had never heard anybody play anything but polkas
and Russian and Italian songs and all kinds of intricate German things on
accordion and I was floored. I quit music lessons in like two weeks after
that.
Wow.
I mean, I always wanted to play between the lines. I
always, you know, I could play the music on the sheets. But I always wanted
to be able to take what I had learned and be able to bend notes and have my
own timing. There’s a lot of people out there that can read like champs and
they can’t do that.
So that’s really where my roots are. They’re really jazz
and bluesy based. Some of my favorite accordion music I play with a band in
LA every once in a while, Zydeco. That’s very, very bluesy rock n’ roll,
jazzy, you know, Tex-Mex kind of stuff. It’s really great.
So it’s just … a chance to return to
your roots more? Just to focus on that?
Yeah, it is. I get a lot of people when I play live that
come and go, ‘My God, you can really play that thing.’ You know, I play
organ and I get to play a long time. And I get to front the band and it's
just a whole different thing. People are like, ‘Wow, we didn’t know you
could do that.’
So, after all this time, you know, I could go out there
and just play what I want and say what I want. One of my favorite lines is,
‘So this what it feels like to stand in front of the band.’ Bruce got a kick
out of that one.
GREAT PRACTICE on Sunday!
The sunshine stayed out – and it was warm!!!
no rain in sight… and lots of dragon boaters came out to paddle in the sunshine.
We had 28 people show up, so we took two dragon boats out. Gayle Gordon led one boat, and I lead the other. Both Stephen Wong and Stephen Mirowski started steering. Ashleigh and Wendy were lead
strokes on the Chinchillas. Tzhe and Keng were lead strokes on the
Donkeys. Gayle and I also took some turns at lead stroke as well.
We
divided people up into two teams, and alternated lessons with mini
sprint races. The Green Swamp Donkeys won the first two
sprint races. The Flaming Red Purple Chinchilla teamwon the third race. As is our
tradition – after each race, the losing team gets to pick somebody from
the other team to join them. So after they lost each race, the Chinchillas got to pick somebody off the Swamp Donkeys team, finally winning with 15 paddlers to 11 paddlers.
Sunday
practice was a lot of fun. People really liked racing each other. With more
people out on Sundays – we can have more races, as well as teaching
people how to paddle when another boat is right beside you, as well as
how to avoid collisions.
upcoming practices
TUESDAY April 15
6pm – on the water asap
This will be our only evening practice this week, as we are going to cancel the WED practice, because of the Managers.& Captains 7pm meeting for the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.
Maybe with only one practice we will have more than 10 or 12 paddlers out for the evening – CROSS YOUR FINGERS!!!
Tuesday Night foodie club in effect…
I think the vote is to go for 40% off happy hour at Kyushu Island.
WEDNESDAY- April 16
no dragon boat practice
7pm Managers & Captains meeting for dragon boat festival
@ Chinese Cultural Centre
corner of Carrall and Pender St.
– walk into the courtyard and enter the David Lam Multi-purpose hall.
THURSDAY – April 17
6pm practice with Gayle's women's team
if you can't practice on Tuesday….
Come out to paddle with the women!
email Gayle to confirm. ggcater@mac.com
She says there has been room on the boat so far…
SUNDAY – April 20
1:30 @ Dragon Zone
It is Sun Run in the morning… so the traffic should be cleared up by the after noon for us.
We are hoping to have enough people for two teams again!
Following Sunday on April 27th, we have a special coaching & video session with Kamini Jain.