Simon Fraser University is awash with images of Toddish McWong, dressed in Lionhead mask and Royal Stewart tartan kilt.  The
picture has been adopted by the SFU Recreation and Intramurals
department to promote the inaugural SFU Gung Haggis Fat Choy “Canadian
Games.”  There are 4’x2’ signs hanging from
the ceiling of the Academic Quadrangle, and there are 3’x 2’ sandwich
board signs all around the campus.  I never
expected to see so many images of me in a kilt all around the SFU
campus, 12 years after I first donned a kilt to help participate in the
SFU Robbie Burns Day mini-parade.

Katie
from Burnaby News Leader interviewed me today at Simon Fraser
University, asking me questions about the origin of Gung Haggis Fat Choy and the creation of the SFU Gung Haggis Fat Choy “Canadian Games.”

The story should appear in the next few days. Here is my recollection of some of the interesting questions she asked me:

Q: What is Gung Haggis Fat Choy?

A: It
is the intersection of two seemingly different cultures in which we
discover the similarities.  It is the exploration of Scottish
Canadian and Chinese Canadian pioneers and history that belongs to all
Canadians.  It is the intercultural fusion that happens as more
and more of Canadians from different ethnic and cultural groups marry
into each other's families and cultures.

Q:Why?

A: Why
not?  It's going to happen anyways.  Almost all my cousins
have married people who are non-Chinese.  This allows their
children and their children's children to be able to celebrate both
cultures simutaneously and with fun.

(At
this point the photographer says that he has a friend who hated all the
family politics and tension filled expectations surrounding Chinese New
Year in his family – but irronically he and his partner have been
attending the GHFC dinner for the past two years, and enjoying it
immensely).

Q: How do people react to the cross-cultural fusion?

A:
Very well, they “get the joke,” and after the dinners there are so many
people who leave smiling, saying “I have to tell my friends,” or “Only
in Vancouver could this happen.”

Q: Has anybody Scottish Canadians reacted negatively towards you?

A: Do
you mean, “How dare you misappropriate and make fun of our culture and
traditions!” (laughing) No… not at all… never in fact.  They actually think it’s pretty cool that a Chinese Canadian guy is promoting Scottish culture.  Harry
McGrath, coordinator at the SFU Center for Scottish Studies, comes to
the Gung Haggis Fat Choy poetry readings and he told me the other day,
“You’re famous in Scotland.” He was referring to a Canadian Press story
that had interviewed McGrath about this Sino-Caledonian fusion.  Harry thinks it’s grrrreat!

Q: How do you feel about people coming to the events?

A: I think it’s great. They get the joke.  As Canadians we have to laugh at ourselves, and have fun with ourselves.  So many Canadian families are now blended cultures.  We are celebrating inclusiveness.  We are celebrating learning about each other’s cultures.  We are celebrating learning about Canada’s own Scottish-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian histories.  It belongs to all Canadians – not just a particular ethnic group.

Q: Have there been any other Scottish Chinese dinners like yours, are there any imitators?

A: Not
that I know of (it slipped my mind that the Chinatown Lions’ Club has
done a Robbie Burns Dinner for many years – but apparently not as wacky
or humourously as mine).  There was somebody
who worked with me at the Vancouver Public Library, who told me he and
a group of friends had their own “Gung Haggis Fat Choy” dinner by
ordering in Chinese food, reading Robbie Burns poetry and playing a
bagpipes cd.  I am going to have to put together a “Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Dinner Kit” and include suggested format, Robbie poems, Asian Canadian
poems, my own poems and a bagpipe cd by my piper Joe McDonald
(laughing).

Q: Where do you see this going?

A:  All across Canada.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners in every town.  People are asking about Gung Haggis Fat Choy.  They want to do their own dinners.  I have heard from people in Edmonton, Nanaimo, Tacoma, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Portland…

And if it brings people together than that is great!  I know that my own ancestors had a hard time in this land because of racial discrimination – often because of Scots.  But now we have so many cousins marrying people of Scottish descent.  We are all intermarrying each others’ cultures.  This is creating a uniquely Canadian culture.  And it is all good.

We finished by doing a photo session with Mario the photographer.  He
had me jumping into the air, holding my dragon boat paddle in one hand,
and my dragon hand puppet perched on my other hand (I don’t think he
was trying to get a shot under my kilt).  I did a variety of leaps, recalling my jumping repetoire from my days spent freestyle skiing on moguls.

Ó 2005 Todd Wong

After my appearance on CBC TV's The National, of course there are things I wished I could have said.

“Todd – tell me how Gung Haggis Fat Choy has expanded,” asked Peter Mansbridge.

actual said – “The dinner has expanded to expecting 700 people this year.”

should have said – “We are expanding beyond the dinner event into mainstream events.  We have been invited to be part of the rejuvenated First Night Vancouver.  This will be an incredible event in downtown Vancouver's Theatre District, held at QE Plaza, CBC Plaza and Library Square. Performing with me will be Silk Road Music's Qiu Xia He & Andre Thibault, Dragon River Shadow Puppet Theatre's musicians Karen Wong & Zhongxi Yu.  We will be creating a family oriented show of audience singalongs, cross-over music, story telling – all celebrating Scottish Hogmanay and Chinese New Year on First Night.

We will have the 2nd annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy World Poetry Night at the Vancouver Public – a free event of music and poetry featuring poet Fred Wah – a Governor General's Award for Poetry winner.  This is done in partnership with the World Poetry Series at the Vancouver Public Library, organized and co-hosted with Ariadne Sawyer and Alejandro Mujica.  We will also be featuring musician songwriter Joe MacDonald, poets Dugald Christie and Shirley Sue-A-Quan.  And I, personally, will perform one of the songs I have written for a planned Children's album of songs celebrating Gung Haggis Fat Choy – incorporating Scottish Hogmany, Robbie Burns Day, Chinese New Year and Multiculturalism or Interculturalism.

We are creating the inaugural SFU Gung Haggis Fat Choy Highland Games at Simon Fraser University – and event to draw on SFU's adopted Scottish heritage and the large Asian student population, to bring the university population together for a series of intramural fun & games + music performances.

Terry “Bear” Varga – owner of Bear Kilts, was very happy – nay – extremely happy, that I was able to mention “This kilt is a Maple Leaf tartan, just made by my good friend “Bear” at Bear Kilts, in the short time I had speaking with Peter Mansbridge.  This also rated a mention on the web forum X Marks the Spot – a web site about everything KILTS.

And my website!  Peter, www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com is getting thousands of hits now, and growing so fast.  I have now decided to use my blog to document and record Asian-Canadian and intercultural events in Vancouver, as I can attend.  I just reviewed the Vancouver Opera's production of Madama Butterfly, as well as a small community event, Harry Aoki's First Friday Forum.  All are important to the intercultural and cultural fusion dynamics of Vancouver.  There are many websites that list events, but very few that actually provide reviews.  So that is what my goal is, to share how engage in intercultural multicultural Vancouver, by sharing my personal adventures and events.

Peter Mansbridge meets Toddish McWong.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy on CBC TV's The National. Picture of me with Peter to come soon…

Roland has already provided a table of contents for new readers listing the essentials of Gung Haggis Fat Choy.  The topics on the left column is something I am just learning to use, it will become more complete as the weeks progress. 

The film clips: 

We filmed some shots last Monday – myself with accordion and lion head, performing music with Joe McDonald on bagpipes, and Harish Kumar on drum + eating haggis wun tun and haggis spring rolls at the Floata Restaurant in Vancouver Chinatown.

Also shown were clips of a musical variety special titled “Gung Haggis Fat Choy” – yes, CBC TV in Vancouver bought the rights from me to use the name, and produced a stunning multicultural tv special.  It was a greatly entertaining 30 minute show produced by Moyra Rodger of Out To See Productions, that had Monty Pythonesque touches with cartoon sequences.  It was so good that it was nominated for two Leo awards for best TV work in BC:  Best Musical/Variety and Best direction for Musical/Variety.

Rae Hull, CBC TV regional director, was the executive producer who invited me in for a meeting in July 2003 and said, “Todd, I think it's time to take Gung Haggis Fat Choy up to the next level.” And voila!  A script is written, studios are booked and music videos are made.

Anyways… from the TV special, clips featured The Paper Boys, Vancouver based celtic folk-rockers, Chinese flautist Ji Min Pan, bagpiper Tim Fanning – all shot in the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Classical Gardens in Vancouver.  Other segments not shown on The National featured Silk Road Music, George Sampoudis, and Joe McDonald's band Brave Waves, as well as the origins of Toddish McWong and Gung Haggis Fat Choy.

The Chinese New Year Dinner featured Joe McDonald in full kilt dress with bear skin hat (or is it ostrich feathers), singer Ula Shines joining my parents, grandmother, and friends.  That was a shot of me holding a plate of a large haggis.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy, the tv special, was proposed to the Toronto CBC head office to run nationally for January with an expanded format, but sadly it was turned down.  If Canadians would like to see the award nominated Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2004 tv special, then please call your local CBC station and ask them to play it for Robbie Burns Day on January 25th, or for Chinese New Year which will fall on Feb 9, in 2005.

It's good.  It is so good, that I believe all Canadians will absolutely love it.  Everybody I spoke to had real positive things to say about it, and it made them LAUGH!  It really captured the spirit of the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinners.  It pokes fun at stereotypes, it shows how Canadians borrow and cross cultures easily.  And most importantly, it shows some of the history of Scots and Chinese cultural traditions in Canada, as well as how we can laugh at ourselves (very important Canadian trait).  The next version would push the boundaries further… We came up with so many great ideas, that it is a shame not to see them realized. Imagine Sara McLachlan performing with her husband/drummer on Indian tabla drums… Loreena McKennit performing with Silk Road Music… hmmm… more dreams….

It was good to get the Gung Haggis Fat Choy voice on national TV.  It was a lot of work, I think we did about 3 hours of filming etc at Floata Restaurant last week in addition to about 4 hours in conversations, meetings and e-mails.  All for about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes on air.  I will try to put a transcript on this blog – hopefully for tomorrow, as well as answer questions that readers may have.  Special thanks to National producer Sarah Quadri and reporter Eve Savory for all their hard work.

Oh – before I forget…  My kilt is made by Terry “Bear” Varga of Bear Kilts.  He started up his company only two years ago.  It is a synthetic polyviscose material – light, inexpensive and perfect for dragon boat paddling.  The tartan is called “Maple Leaf” – we are adopting it as the official Gung Haggis Fat Choy tartan.  And… instead of buckles, Terry uses… (dare I say it?)… velcro!

How is Gung Haggis expanding?  In every way possible, and never before imagined!

We will be featured at First Night Vancouver at the QE Plaza, Dec 31.  Performing with me will be Silk Road Music's Qiu Xia He and Andrea Thibault, Dragon River Shadow Puppet Theatre's Karen Wong and Zhongxi Yu, and hopefully Battery Opera's David McIntosh and Lee Su-Feh.  We promise a night full of family entertainment, featuring audience singalongs, storytelling, music and fun.

We will be at the Vancouver Public Library on Jan 17, Gung Haggis Fat Choy World Poetry Night – hosted with my friend Ariadne Sawyer and Alejandro Mujica – featuring poet Fred Wah, bagpiper Joe McDonald, Dugald Christie, and Shirley Sue-A-Quan.

So… thanks for tuning in and checking our blog.  Please make your comments and we will do our best to address them and answer your questions.

Slainte, Toddish

Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2004 was in the Associated Press and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. This is very appropriate because Todd has a Seattle familial connection which he will post about later.

From Cultures collide: Chinese don kilts, Scots try haggis wonton – written by Amy Carmichael and originally written for Canadian Press.

Here is an excerpt:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Chinese men don kilts and Scots try haggis wonton in the annual multicultural Chinese New Year party for Scottish poet Robert Burns – a 1998 college gag that's become a mainstream event.

More than 500 people so far have snapped up tickets for this weekend's celebration. The birthday of the 18th century Scottish bard is Sunday, at the dawn of the Chinese New Year.

“This is what Canadian society is all about, introducing each other to our cultures and celebrating more holidays,” said organizer Todd Wong.

He was dubbed “Toddish McWong” when he caved in to pleas from friends in a Burns club to help out with their annual reading. The fifth-generation Chinese Canadian was given a book of Gaelic-spiked poems to recite, and a crash course on Scots traditions: men wearing skirts, carrying swords and eating weird foods.

“People, especially Scottish Canadians, thought it was really cool to see a Chinese guy wearing a kilt,” he said.

for more… check out Cultures collide: Chinese don kilts, Scots try haggis wonton – written by Amy Carmichael and originally written for Canadian Press.

Check it out Chinese don kilts by Amy Carmichael of Canadian Press (here's a PDF version).

This story was reprinted in Seattle Post Intelligence, Windsor ON, and many other newspapers and blogsites around the world.

Harry McGrath, coordinator of the SFU Scottish Studies Program and Beverly Nann, president of Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society give great quotes about Toddish McWong and the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner.

Please note: the photo credit should be to Don Montgomery and courtesy of Todd Wong