Gung Haggis Fat Choy

Our friend, Walter, sent us an email about an interesting upcoming fusion Gung Haggis Fat Choy / A Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner at Spicy Court, one of our favourite Chinese restaurants.

Here's an excerpt from the email. All the links except the last one (to the review of last year's event) were added by myself.
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January 27th, Sunday, 5pm
Spicy Court Chinese Restaurant, 5638 Cambie St. Vancouver.
$40 Advanced Tickets. $45 at the door

For more information contact Todd Wong: 604-987-7124 or Asian Heritage Month Office: 604-488-0119

Take a Chinese banquet dinner, add haggis and bagpipes, sing-a-longs of Scottish songs, a mix of contemporary Asian Canadian poetry and song, dress the hosts in kilts and cheong sam, and what do you have? A unique and wacky take on multi-culturalism.

"It's the highlight of the New Year for me," says historian poet, Jim Wong-Chu. "The bagpipes-South Asian tabla drumming fusion, combined with haggis and chow mein is the best of all possible worlds. It's real life."

Wong-Chu's own poem, Recipe For Tea , describes how tea traveled from China to Scotland and has become an annual tradition at this event alongside the recitation of Robbie Burns' Ode to a Haggis. Also featured will be the Asian North American time line that Wong-Chu recently completed for Asian Heritage Month, as well as poets and singers between each dinner course.

A Scottish-Chinese connection is rooted in poetry. Chinese statesman and beloved poet Qu Yuan protested the corrupt Chu Dynasty regime by drowning himself in the Mi Lo River in 400 B.C., thus initiating the dragon boat race tradition that recreates the original rescue attempt by villagers. Similarly, Scotland's favorite son, Robbie Burns, was a rebel poet who protested the English occupation of Scotland and occasionally drowned himself in drink, initiating the tradition of Robbie Burns Dinners commemorating the poet.

"I wanted to create a fun event that celebrates the similarities in our common cultures, and is about being Canadian," says dinner founder Todd Wong, alias Toddish McWong, who will be wearing a kilt. "This event lets us laugh, sing and eat, while we learn that many early Scots and Chinese pioneers both came to Canada after failed rebellions against the English colonial forces," adds Wong, whose own family has reached 7 generations in Canada with many multi-racial marriages.

And in true multicultural fashion, the Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner is a fundraiser for 3 diverse groups: The Asian Canadian Writer's Workshop, Asian Heritage Month and the Celebration dragon boat team that Wong coaches each year, which in 2000 won the Hon. David C. Lam Award for being the dragon boat team that best represented the multicultural spirit at the Alcan Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival.
For a review of last year's dinner see: www.ubyssey.bc.ca/article.shtml?/20010130/gungHaggisFatChoy.htmlf
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