Category Archives: Canadian Identity & Heritage

Joy Kogawa House cited as example as campaign to save Al Purdy cabin in Eastern Ontario starts up

Leave a reply

Joy Kogawa House cited as example as campaign to save Al Purdy cabin in Eastern Ontario starts up.

How important was it to save Joy Kogawa's childhood home?

Joy Kogawa House was recently cited in a Globe & Mail article about then endangered home of Al Purdy in an article by Patrick White titled: The house where Al Purdy lived is on the block

There may still be time to save it. But any effort would take a great
deal of cash and organization, says Don Oravec, executive director of
the Writers' Trust of Canada, which runs Pierre Berton's childhood home
in Dawson City, Yukon, as a retreat, and raised funds to purchase the
Vancouver house where novelist Joy Kogawa grew up. “The trick is not
just buying the house.” Oravec says. “It's also creating an endowment
to maintain the place.

Canadian literature is an important part to our Canadian identity. Sustaining and supporting our writers has long been a struggle and an issue.  White writes that the house played an important role in Purdy's development as a poet.

The move soon paid off creatively, inspiring what is perhaps the most
famous metamorphosis in Canadian literary history. Once a struggling
writer of tortured romantic verse, Purdy and his work changed forever
along the shores of Roblin Lake.

“It was really when they left Montreal and built that house that Al
went into a kind of hibernation and came of age as a poet,” says Purdy
friend, poet and House of Anansi co-founder Dennis Lee, who first
visited Ameliasburgh in the sixties to ink a book deal with Purdy.

Al Purdy, his wife Eurithe and their house also played a role in the development of author Michael Ondaatje and other writers by offering them refuge and support.

Michael Ondaatje, Tom Marshall and David Helwig hadn't published a
single book between them when “Al and Eurithe simply invited us in,”
writes Ondaatje in the foreword to Purdy's collected works. “And why?
Because we were poets! Not well-known writers or newspaper celebrities.
… These visits became essential to our lives. We weren't there for
gossip, certainly not to discuss royalties and publishers. We were
there to talk about poetry. Read poems aloud. Argue over them. Complain
about prosody.”

Read the entire article at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080712.ALPURDY12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Ontario/

Did Chinese discover BC first? Oldest new immigrants? DNA connections? Georgia Straight tackles the question?

Leave a reply

Did the Chinese discover North America 1000 years before Columbus?

“Who were BC's first seafarers?” is the cover feature on this week's Georgia Straight?

Daniel Wood writes a very interesting feature that addresses the Chinese legendary land of Fu Sang, interviews underwater acheologist enthusiast Tom Beasley, and explores the Gavin Menzies book 1421, the Year China Discovered the World.

I have written about connections between First Nations and Chinese people when Storyscapes was exploring the oral history of such meetings:  Vancouver Storyscapes: Where the Chinese met the First Nations peoples

It's not unfathomable that the Chinese discovered North America first.  Afterall, ancient Chinese civilization and science was much further advanced than European civilization circa 500 AD.  According to Menzies, the Chinese had huge boats 5X the size of Columbus' flagship.  A lot of trade and knowledge migrated to Japan from China, and Japanese glass fishing floats have regularly made their way to BC's shores, due to ocean currents.

I have often spoke with BC's First Nations people about Chinese-First Nations connections.  Afterall, my mother's blood cousin is Rhonda Larrabee, chief of the Qayqayt (New Westminster) First Nations.  Larry Grant, Musqueam elder, is half Chinese, like cousin Rhonda.

When I was up in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), I spoke with Haida people about the shared “mongolian birthmark” that both Chinese and First Nations people are born with.
Check out my stories:

Check it out:
http://www.straight.com/article-152876/who-were-bcs-first-seafarers?

Rev. Chan Yu Tan is announced as winner for inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award

Leave a reply

Rev Chan Yu Tan is inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award winner as the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association celebrates the 150 year history of Chinese-Canadians.


Rev. Chan Yu Tan was one of the first Chinese ordained in Canada.   He arrived in Canada in 1896, at age 33, following his elder brother Rev. Chan Sing Kai, who had arrived in 1888 at the invitation of the Methodist Church of Canada.

The Victoria Chinese Commerce Association has launched an ambitious awards program that will be celebrated at the Empress Hotel in Victoria BC, coinciding with BC 150 celebrations.  see www.150goldenmountain.ca.

Rev. Chan Yu Tan, my great-great-grandfather, is the first pioneer award recipient to be named for the
“British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural” 2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award.  Through the Chinese Methodist Church, he helped teach the congregations about Canadian ways, and to live a Christian life.  The Church was also the first organization to provide English language classes to Chinese immigrants.   Rev. Chan always emphasized learning to adapt to Canadian ways and culture, and was always wearing Western clothing. 
Rev Chan Yu Tan ministered to Chinese people in Victoria, Vancouver, Nanaimo and New Westminister.

Our family now has reached the 7th generation, and is spread throughout North American with descendants being active in the communities of Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, as well as Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and Colorado. 

Our family has become very integrated into Canadian and American society.  Rev. Chan's son Luke became an actor in Hollywood.  Grandsons became Canadian soldiers during WW2 when they couldn't vote.  Subsequent generations became a lawyer, a doctor and even an Indian Chief –  as well as a city councilor in Calgary, a CBC television news reporter in Vancouver, and even a Miss Canada 2nd runner up.

Here's a picture of Rev. & Mrs. Chan Yu Tan with Rev. Chan's sister Phoebe on the far left.  Standing behind them are son Solomon and daughter Kate (my great-grandmother).  Standing beside them are sons Jack and Luke;  in front is daughter Rose, and between them is the young Millicent.

Read the Press Release from the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July __ 2008

Reverend Chan Yu Tan Wins the
“British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural”
2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award
Join Us in Celebration

The Victoria Chinese Commerce Association (VCCA) and the 150 Years In Golden Mountain Celebration Committee are acknowledges the tremendous contributions Chinese people have made to British Columbia since the province’s beginnings in 1858 by hosting an awards gala dinner on August 8, 2008 and a celebration pageant on August 9, 2008. The presenting sponsors for both events are RBC Royal Bank and Fairway Market. The celebrations are presented with the support of BC150 (the Province of British Columbia), the City of Victoria, and with the participation of the Government of Canada.

Sinclair Mar, chair of the celebration committee, illuminated the importance of the Golden Mountain Achievement Awards; “these awards are to honour the achievements of Chinese Canadians in the areas of business, the arts, culture, education, public service and community service. We also want to honour our pioneers and those who have helped the Chinese over the years.”

An independent Awards Selection Committee has reviewed nominations for the Golden Mountain Achievement Awards from all across the country, with nominees spanning generations from early pioneers to more recent contributors still, active in the community. The independent selection committee has completed the challenging task of choosing award winners from 150 years of worthy nominees.  While not all award winners will be released prior to the Awards dinner the VCCA is pleased to announce the late Reverend Chan Yu Tan as the winner of the “British Columbia Lifetime Cultural or Multicultural 2008 Golden Mountain Achievement Award”.

 Reverend Chan Yu Tan was born in Canton, China and immigrated to Canada's West Coast in 1896 with his wife, Wong Chiu Lin. He was one of the first Chinese in Canada to be ordained as a minister. Reverend Tan always stressed the importance of multiculturalism and his legacy of cultural fusion lives on amongst his predecessors.  His great-great-grandson, Todd Wong, is the creator of the decade old Vancouver tradition, the “Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner”; an event which mixes traditional Scottish and Chinese celebrations together in the city of Vancouver.  Great-granddaughter, Rhonda Lee, has also exercised her great-grandfather’s gift for multiculturalism, becoming the chief of the New Westminster band, the Qayqayt. 

This award, along with others, will be presented at the sold out Gala Awards Dinner at the Fairmont Empress to his surviving family. Hotel on August 8 (08/08/08, an auspicious “triple 8” in Chinese culture). The next night the VCCA, will present a celebration pageant at the Royal Theater where award winners have been invited to attend and enjoy the premiere of an original pageant.  Join them is celebrating 150 years of Chinese Canadian Achievements. 

Mr. Mar elaborated on the Pageant: “This will be an exciting original show, with many performers: actors, dancers and musicians. Chinese history will come alive with a mixture of cultural presentations and new choreography and new music composed specially for this celebration.  Ticket sales are strong and we recommend early reservations.

President of the VCCA, Amanda Mills, said “Members of the VCCA feel it is their privilege and duty to celebrate and honor their ancestors and those Chinese Canadians who have achieved so much in 150 years of service to Canada.”

For more information, please contact celebration chair Sinclair Mar at 250-382-5744 or VCCA president Amanda Mills at 250-727-0222, or visit www.150goldenmountain.ca. 

Hapa Canada Day Eve!

Leave a reply

Canada Day Eve is one of the greatest celebration events not celebrated…


Hapa-Canadian “Standing on Guard for Thee”! original drawing by Jeff Chiba Stearns

Why don't we have a midnight countdown to celebrate our country's birthday?  Okay, there are fireworks celebrations at the end of Canada Day, but everybody has to go to work the next morning.  Aren't holidays better celebrated when you can stay up late the night before, then sleep in?

Last night, I met up with two friends, Leanne Riding and Judy Maxwell.  When I introduced them, it took only a few minutes before one of them said “Are you hapa?”

And this was in a darkened room!

If people think that “Canadian Identity”is a conundrum, try to define being Hapa.  It's a Hawaiian term that is now more commonly used to define mixed race Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans.

My friend John Endo Greenaway writes this:

“Some people don’t like the term hapa, given its somewhat
derogatory roots, but many mixed Asian-Canadians/Amercians have
embraced it, although it has yet to enter the mainstream vocabulary.
But whatever term you want to use, hapas are here to stay. With a 90% intermarriage rate (give or take) Japanese Canadians are producing hapa children at a prodigious rate. Attend a Japanese Canadian gathering or event and chances are you’ll see hapa everywhere, ranging in age from infants to mid-thirties.”


http://www.canadiannikkei.ca/blog/what-is-hapa/

So…. back to Canada Day Eve….

With my two Hapa friends, we start talking about our “Hapa radars”, that intuitive sense that immediately lets us know when we think that somebody we've never met before is Hapa.  We talk about the reactions that people have to them, when people realize they are neither Asian nor Caucasian, but both.  We talk about the first time when I realized they were Hapa.

We go down to Kitsilano Beach, finding a secluded spot, watch dusk settle in because we just missed the sunset after 10pm.  We talk more about Hapa-ness… the beingness of Hapa, about our Hapa friends, our Hapa cousins, Hapa nieces and nephews.

We talk about Hapa friends like Jeff Chiba Stearns who is an animator, and created the Hapa short animation film “What Are You Anyways?” We talk about Brandy Lien-Worrall who is the editor of “All Mixed Up“an anthology chap book of Hapa poetry.

Maxwell and Riding… two very un-Asian sounding names.  But they
chatted on about how easy they can be mistaken for Asian or Caucasians
in different settings.  Both are very active in the Asian-Canadian
community.  Judy is presently a researcher for the Chinese Canadian
Military Museum, and has done many academic and conference
presentations because of her research on the Chinese disaspora and
migration patterns.  Leanne has been studying Asian-Canadian history
and is now active as co-president of Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop
and the Asian Canadian Organization, which started as a student
initiated project at UBC.

But both have family histories that
are rooted in the racial turmoils of our country.  Judy's
great-grandfather was a Member of Parliament that had pushed for the
Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, while Leanne's grandparents and great-grandparents had been interned during WW2 because they were of Japanese
ancestry.

They name me a “Honourary Hapa,” because of the community building work I do such as Gung Haggis Fat Choy, which they both totally love, and attended earlier this year, back in January.  They both made fun of me, because I couldn't initially remember where they were sitting in the room of 430 people, even though one of the them was sitting at the head table with me along with the Vancouver.

And then it dawns on me.  Being Canadian is being Hapa… and being Hapa is being Canadian.  Canada celebrates it's cultural diversity, and nowhere is that diversity better celebrated than in the mixed race DNA enhanced ethnicities of it's peoples… even better if it all rolled up in one.

With BC celebrating it's 150th Anniversary this year in 2008, we are reminded that Simon Fraser came down the “Fraser River” with a crew of Metis (French-First Nations mix), and BC's first Governor James Douglas was born in the Caribbean nation of Guyana of mixed Scottish and Creole bloodlines.  BC's history is Hapa…. and most people don't even realize it.

So… sitting on English Bay… (Somewhere there must be an original First Nations Name that can be chosen as a “rename”) we toasted to Canada's birthday eve, and our Hapa-ness.  And in our lively and wonderful conversations (which later moved to a Kitsilano area apartment), we had so much fun, we forgot to do a countdown to midnight until it was long past.

Here are some Hapa websites:

The Hapa Project

Eurasian Nation

MAVIN Foundation

Hapas.com

Meditating Bunny
Home page of Jeff Chiba Stearns, whose short animated film What Are You Anyways? deals with growing up hapa.

Halvsie
“For, by and about Half Japanese”

Geist Magazine celebrates Canada Day

Leave a reply

Geist Magazine sent me a Canada Day Greeting via e-mail.

They have pulled all sorts of Canadiana type articles from their back catalogue.  In typical Canadian style, much of the humour is self-deprecating.  Is this how we define ourselves as Canadians?  At least we have a sense of humour… is how we can always be grateful that we are not Americans.  Waitaminit… Aren't most of the great American comics really Canadian?  Jim Carey, Dan Akroyd, William Shatner,

Here's a few of the highlights from GEIST:

http://www.geist.com/featured/canada-day


A Canadian Etiology

Christopher Gudgeon

How Do I Know I’m Canadian?
1. When I go to a party with people from another country, no one expects me to be interesting.
2. I know all the words to my national anthem, except the French ones, and the tune is not that hard.

The Honorary Canadian Awards: A Modest Proposal

Christopher Gudgeon

It is proposed that: in the interest of fostering better understanding of the Canadian identity throughout the world,
The Geist Foundation sponsor the Honorary Canadian Awards Program (HOCAP) by identifying and rewarding non-citizens who “act in a manner befitting a Canadian.”

Chiquita Canáda

Stephen Osborne

Last
month we had a visit from Eliz­abeth Anderson, who hails from
Min­neapolis, Minnesota, where she is a graduate student at the state
univer­sity. Her field of study is Canada, and she also writes about
Canada for Utne Reader. We wanted immediately to know what there is about Canada that might constitute an object of study.

150 years of BC Stories: The Rev. Chan Family

Leave a reply

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.

Vancouver Province: Vancouver to embrace Tartan Day on April 6

Leave a reply

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.

Vancouver to embrace Tartan Day on April 6

Christina Montgomery,
The Province

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

Rhonda Larrabee, chief of Qayqayt First Nations, in CTV's One Women Tribe

2 Replies

This is the CTV documentary about my cousin Rhonda Larrabee's struggle to resurrect Canada's smallest First Nations band the Qayqayt. 

Once upon a time the band flourished on the banks of the Fraser River.  Then White settlers moved into their territories and renamed it New Westminster.  The Qayqayt were put on a Reserve, but that was taken away from them too. 

Rhonda's mother fled her homeland territories due to racism and shame.  She came to Vancouver's Chinatown, where she met Rhonda's father.  Rhonda grew up into her teenage years thinking she was Chinese.  Then she discovered she was First Nations.

Now Rhonda Larrabee is resurrecting the Qayqayt Nation.

Tribes & Treaties

This show originally aired on January 26

Tribes & Treaties


Updated: Tue Feb. 05 2008 18:04:25

ctvbc.ca

One Women Tribe:

Rhonda Larrabee discovered the startling truth about her family
origins. She was not of Chinese and French descent as she was told
while growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown. Rhonda's mother was First
Nations. Then an even bigger shock – Rhonda discovered that she is the
last surviving member of the Qayqayt Tribe (New Westminster Band). She
is now striving to preserve the cultural legacy that her mother felt
forced to reject.

see the pod cast:
http://www.ctvbc.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080127/bc_firststory_women_tribe_080127/20080127/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

Global TV News: Todd Wong and Gung Haggis dragon boat team interviewed for story on BC's cultural diversity

Leave a reply


Watch GLOBAL NEWS on Tuesday Feb 26 –
6pm
TOMORROW!

Everybody knowns that BC's cultural diversity is one of the best things about living in BC.  Where else can you celebrate almost all the world's cultures worldly cuisines in a single city, go dragon boat racing, go to First Nations pow wows, enter a St. Patrick's Day parade, and learn bangra dancing?

Todd Wong (me) 
was interviewed on Feb 17th for a Global TV story celebrating BC's 150 years.

I talk about cultural diversity in BC, and am seen with the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team, paddling in the background.

Cultural diversity
is the topic, Todd and the Gung Haggis dragon boat team will
represent it to Global TV viewers.  Our dragon boat team itself has a good mixture of not only Asian and Caucasian paddlers, but also one paddler with Iraqi heritage and 3 paddlers with both Asian/Caucasian DNA.

I also explain the history of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year dinner, which celebrates not only the Scottish and Chinese pioneer histories of BC, but also “everything inbetween and everything beyond.”

From Global TV producer/reporter Elaine Yong:



We
did a poll asking people what they thought were the things that made BC
a world-class place, and people/culture/diversity was one of the top 10
responses.  To illustrate some of BC's amazing culture and diversity, I
thought you would be a great person to profile.  But of course, we need
some viz of you doing something, and since we missed the dinner, the
dragon boating would be great, as well as another example of cultural
diversity.  The story is scheduled to air Feb 26.


Eric on the Road podcast with Gung Haggis Fat Choy – hitting US pod cast waves

Leave a reply

Back in January, Todd Wong was interviewed by Eric Model for “Conversations on the Road.”  Model describes his  show as “journeys into the offbeat, off the beaten path, overlooked and the forgotten.”

“And today most appropriately takes us into the category of offbeat.  And today's journey we go to Vancouver and we are discussing and event called 'Gung Haggis Fat Choy.'”

It's a very interesting 21 minute and 38 second pod cast with a stimulating conversation about the origins of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, early Chinese and Scottish pioneers in the late 1800's, racism, cultural traditions, inter-racial marriage, and the Canadian explorer Simon Fraser who was actually born in Vermont.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Gung Haggis Fat Choy – A Unique Scottish-Chinese Cultural Celebration

Posted by: emodel // Category: Uncategorized // 8:15 am

Gung
Haggis Fat Choy is a cultural event originating from Vancouver, BC. The
name Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a combination wordplay on Scottish and
Chinese words: haggis is a traditional Scottish food and Gung Hay Fat
Choy/Kung Hei Fat Choi s a traditional Cantonese greeting (in Mandarin
it is pronounced Gong Xi Fa Cai) used during Chinese New Year. The
event originated to mark the timely coincidence of the Scottish
cultural celebration of Robert Burns Day (January 25) with the Chinese
New Year, but has come to represent a celebration of combining cultures
in untraditional ways.

In Vancouver, the event is characterized by music, poetry, and other
performances around the city, culminating in a large banquet and party.
This unique event has also inspired both a television performance
special titled Gung Haggis Fat Choy, and the Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Canadian Games, organized by the Recreation Department at Simon Fraser
University.

In this conversation, we speak with event founder and spearhead Todd
Wong. He tells us how it got started, and what it has come to represent
around Vancouver and far beyond. 

icon for podpress  Gung Haggis Fat Choy [21:38m]:  Download