'Gung Haggis' bridging the ethnic gap
Of lions, fish and rats: (Top to Bottom)A dragon dance performer waits for the start of a cultural presentation at Longtan Park in Beijing, South Korean divers wearing traditional dresses stand in an aquarium in Seoul, and street artists perform a Chinese traditional dance called 'Barongsay' as they ask for donations in Jakarta, Indonesia. The lunar Year of the Rat, which begins today, will be celebrated by as many as 35 million overseas Chinese in cities across the globe. Pictures: Reuters, AFP, EPA
Thursday, February 7, 2008
CHINESE New Year celebrations began here last month with the skirl of Scottish bagpipes, and will wrap up on Sunday as Chinese dragons parade alongside South Asian dancers.
Worldwide, the Year of the Rat will officially be trumpeted today. But over the last decade, there has been a mixing of cultures that observers say makes the annual festivities in Vancouver unique.
With nearly 40 per cent of the population in some neighbourhoods of this Pacific Coast metropolis of 2.2 million having Chinese ancestry, Chinese culture has long had a high profile.
The city's annual parade highlights how multiculturalism has altered traditional the Chinese New Year's fete.
The event began decades ago "with just Chinese people", says Syrus Lee, the promoter of festivals in the city's historic Chinatown. "But it's become really multicultural."
On February 10, says Lee, the downtown parade will feature traditional Chinese performers alongside North American aboriginal groups, groups from the Philippines, several South Asian cultural performers, at least two traditional British pipe bands and a lion dance by members of the Vancouver Police Department.
New Year's kicked off in mid-January, when pipers, Chinese dragon dancers and chefs began preparing for "Gung Haggis Fat Choy".
A play on the Chinese New Year greeting and haggis, Gung Haggis Fat Choy commemorates the January 25 birthday of Scottish poet Robbie Burns and Chinese New Year.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy was begun in 1994 by local resident Todd Wong, who was a student and tour guide at Simon Fraser University at the time and decided that the coincidence of Burns's birthday and Chinese New Year occurring within days of each other was a good reason for a party.
For the past decade, Wong has organised an annual feast, attended by some 400 residents of all ethnicities, that merges traditional Scottish and Chinese foods, Scottish music and dragon dances.
Lee, who works at a regular job in a city library, says he began Gung Haggis Fat Choy to bridge lingering divisions between ethnic groups.
Today, he notes, Vancouver has many cross-cultural marriages and families, and "the new generations of Canadians are growing up with Chinese and Scottish DNA. This is a great way to combat racism".
For those swept up in this melange of cultures, traditions and races, Vancouver's multiculturalism seems simply normal. "Vancouver is a breeding ground, it's not assimilation, it's more a combination, a mixture of cultures," says Anny He, a Canadian student of Chinese parents, who plays the Scottish bagpipes in the junior division of the local Simon Fraser University pipe band.
"It's not about losing our heritage, it's combining it with something that your culture didn't have, it's about learning new things," she says.
Henry Yu, a professor of history at the University of British Columbia here, says Vancouver is unique in the world with a mix of ethnic Chinese and Europeans that is nearly equal, and "one of the highest intermarriage rates in North America ... glued on to a long history of conflict".
British Columbia province is "not unique in dealing with racism," says Yu, "but what's unique is how much farther we've gone." AFP
Worldwide, the Year of the Rat will officially be trumpeted today. But over the last decade, there has been a mixing of cultures that observers say makes the annual festivities in Vancouver unique.
With nearly 40 per cent of the population in some neighbourhoods of this Pacific Coast metropolis of 2.2 million having Chinese ancestry, Chinese culture has long had a high profile.
The city's annual parade highlights how multiculturalism has altered traditional the Chinese New Year's fete.
The event began decades ago "with just Chinese people", says Syrus Lee, the promoter of festivals in the city's historic Chinatown. "But it's become really multicultural."
On February 10, says Lee, the downtown parade will feature traditional Chinese performers alongside North American aboriginal groups, groups from the Philippines, several South Asian cultural performers, at least two traditional British pipe bands and a lion dance by members of the Vancouver Police Department.
New Year's kicked off in mid-January, when pipers, Chinese dragon dancers and chefs began preparing for "Gung Haggis Fat Choy".
A play on the Chinese New Year greeting and haggis, Gung Haggis Fat Choy commemorates the January 25 birthday of Scottish poet Robbie Burns and Chinese New Year.
Gung Haggis Fat Choy was begun in 1994 by local resident Todd Wong, who was a student and tour guide at Simon Fraser University at the time and decided that the coincidence of Burns's birthday and Chinese New Year occurring within days of each other was a good reason for a party.
For the past decade, Wong has organised an annual feast, attended by some 400 residents of all ethnicities, that merges traditional Scottish and Chinese foods, Scottish music and dragon dances.
Lee, who works at a regular job in a city library, says he began Gung Haggis Fat Choy to bridge lingering divisions between ethnic groups.
Today, he notes, Vancouver has many cross-cultural marriages and families, and "the new generations of Canadians are growing up with Chinese and Scottish DNA. This is a great way to combat racism".
For those swept up in this melange of cultures, traditions and races, Vancouver's multiculturalism seems simply normal. "Vancouver is a breeding ground, it's not assimilation, it's more a combination, a mixture of cultures," says Anny He, a Canadian student of Chinese parents, who plays the Scottish bagpipes in the junior division of the local Simon Fraser University pipe band.
"It's not about losing our heritage, it's combining it with something that your culture didn't have, it's about learning new things," she says.
Henry Yu, a professor of history at the University of British Columbia here, says Vancouver is unique in the world with a mix of ethnic Chinese and Europeans that is nearly equal, and "one of the highest intermarriage rates in North America ... glued on to a long history of conflict".
British Columbia province is "not unique in dealing with racism," says Yu, "but what's unique is how much farther we've gone." AFP
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