It was 1998 and as the Chinese Lunar New Year fell only two days away from Robbie Burns Day, which is always January 25, Todd decided to celebrate the Scottish Bard’s birthday along with the Lunar New Year. “Gung Haggis Fat Choy!” said Wong, “I can celebrate two cultures at the same time.” And thus was born the Vancouver cultural premiere that culinary and media personalities have come to celebrate this cultural mashup that features deep-fried haggis wontons, haggis dim sum, and haggis lettuce wrap with a glass of scotch each year. Gung Haggis Fat Choy started out as a small fundraiser of 16 people in 1998 in a crowded living room. Twenty years later it serves dinner at the biggest Chinese Restaurant in North America, and has spun off a CBC television performance special, and the SFU Gung Haggis Fat Choy Canadian Games. in almost all the food that we normally serve at a GHFC Banquet Dinner.
This year our performers include:
- City of Vancouver Poet Laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam – will read a poem “in response to Burns“
- Author Janie Chang will read a Lunar New Year scene from her new novel “Library of Legends”
- Jill Barber singer/songwriter
- Michael Viens & Rosie Carver celtic duo, Blackthorn Blossoms duo.
- Allan McMordie bagpiper
- City Opera Vancouver performance from the brand new Chinatown opera that will premiere in September 2022 – Libretto by Madeleine Thien, music by Alice Ping Yee Ho
- Video visit to Chinatown Storytelling Centre
- filmmaker Karen Cho from Montreal.
Songs we’ll singalong to:
- Michael & Rosie will perform a traditional Robbie Burns song.
- BRAND NEW! Todd Wong’s performance of Address to a Haggis, set to a Johnny Cash tune.
- Auld Lang Syne (original lyrics by Robbie Burns – lyrics in Chinese (found somewhere on the internet)