VANCOUVER—What do Robbie Burns Day and the Chinese New Year have in common? At first glance not a lot, but if you ask Todd Wong, founder of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, the two partner together quite well.
“In Canada they talk about the two solitudes of English and French and of course the First Nations, but in British Columbia I believe our pioneering culture has really been the Scots who came from the east across the Atlantic and the Chinese who came across the Pacific,” he says.
“I think every good Canadian should learn about Canada’s Chinese and Scottish heritage.”
Wong, or “Toddish McWong” as he is known in the Scottish community, invented a new holiday by combining the Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day, the holiday that celebrates the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet.
The two holidays fall close together in the calendar year, making it convenient to combine the celebrations, notes Wong, a fifth generation Chinese-Canadian.
On Jan. 31, Vancouver’s Chinatown will host the 12th annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy festival where deep-fried haggis won ton will be served alongside single malt whiskey. Dragon cart racing at Simon Fraser University is also part of the festival.
Wong was a student at SFU in 1993 when he was asked to help out with the university’s annual Robbie Burns Day celebration. At first hesitant, he conceded and donned a Scottish kilt for the first time, thus beginning a long appreciation for Scottish culture and planting the seeds for what was to come.
The first Gung Haggis Fat Choy celebration was held in 1998 in a friend’s living room for 16 people who gathered to eat Haggis, listen to the bagpipes, and recite poetry.
“It was just completely by accident as most great things are,” said Wong. “We invited our friends who were Scottish or Chinese and I cooked most of the dishes and in between each dish we read poetry and sang songs.”
The following year the dinner was moved to a small Chinese restaurant and turned into a fundraiser for Wong’s dragon boat team.
Today the annual celebration hosts a party for more than 400 at Floata, North America’s largest Chinese Restaurant. Live performers, bagpipes, and modern and traditional cuisine from both Chinese and Scottish culture are all part of the evening’s festivities.
Previous years have incorporated highland dancing, poetry readings, an opera soprano, the Gung Haggis Fat Choy pipe band, and a Gung Haggis dragon dance
A highlight of the event is the “Address to a Haggis,” the recital of Robert Burns’ poem written in praise of the Scottish traditional meal which is made of sausage or savoury pudding cooked in a casing of sheep’s intestine—not exactly typical fare and something usually reserved for the stout of stomach.
But Wong has added a unique Chinese twist by creating dishes like deep-fried haggis won tons and haggis dim sum.
He says this year he plans to do a rap presentation of Burns’ famous poem.
“We feel that if Robbie Burns was alive today, certainly street poetry, or rap, would be very much within the vernacular. Some people are doing slam poetry nowadays. I think Robbie would be right in there.”
Vancouver has a strong multicultural community and lends itself well to the creation of such cultural inventions as Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Wong says “interculturalism” takes the melding of cultures to a whole new level.
“Multiculturalism itself almost promotes that everything should stay the way it is,” he says. “It’s perfect when you’re an immigrant and you come here and you get to put your culture in a little box and take it off the shelf for festivals. But it’s interculturalism that is going to continually reinvent and create contemporary Canadian culture.”
“In Canada they talk about the two solitudes of English and French and of course the First Nations, but in British Columbia I believe our pioneering culture has really been the Scots who came from the east across the Atlantic and the Chinese who came across the Pacific,” he says.
“I think every good Canadian should learn about Canada’s Chinese and Scottish heritage.”
Wong, or “Toddish McWong” as he is known in the Scottish community, invented a new holiday by combining the Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day, the holiday that celebrates the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet.
The two holidays fall close together in the calendar year, making it convenient to combine the celebrations, notes Wong, a fifth generation Chinese-Canadian.
On Jan. 31, Vancouver’s Chinatown will host the 12th annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy festival where deep-fried haggis won ton will be served alongside single malt whiskey. Dragon cart racing at Simon Fraser University is also part of the festival.
Wong was a student at SFU in 1993 when he was asked to help out with the university’s annual Robbie Burns Day celebration. At first hesitant, he conceded and donned a Scottish kilt for the first time, thus beginning a long appreciation for Scottish culture and planting the seeds for what was to come.
The first Gung Haggis Fat Choy celebration was held in 1998 in a friend’s living room for 16 people who gathered to eat Haggis, listen to the bagpipes, and recite poetry.
“It was just completely by accident as most great things are,” said Wong. “We invited our friends who were Scottish or Chinese and I cooked most of the dishes and in between each dish we read poetry and sang songs.”
The following year the dinner was moved to a small Chinese restaurant and turned into a fundraiser for Wong’s dragon boat team.
Today the annual celebration hosts a party for more than 400 at Floata, North America’s largest Chinese Restaurant. Live performers, bagpipes, and modern and traditional cuisine from both Chinese and Scottish culture are all part of the evening’s festivities.
Previous years have incorporated highland dancing, poetry readings, an opera soprano, the Gung Haggis Fat Choy pipe band, and a Gung Haggis dragon dance
A highlight of the event is the “Address to a Haggis,” the recital of Robert Burns’ poem written in praise of the Scottish traditional meal which is made of sausage or savoury pudding cooked in a casing of sheep’s intestine—not exactly typical fare and something usually reserved for the stout of stomach.
But Wong has added a unique Chinese twist by creating dishes like deep-fried haggis won tons and haggis dim sum.
He says this year he plans to do a rap presentation of Burns’ famous poem.
“We feel that if Robbie Burns was alive today, certainly street poetry, or rap, would be very much within the vernacular. Some people are doing slam poetry nowadays. I think Robbie would be right in there.”
Vancouver has a strong multicultural community and lends itself well to the creation of such cultural inventions as Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Wong says “interculturalism” takes the melding of cultures to a whole new level.
“Multiculturalism itself almost promotes that everything should stay the way it is,” he says. “It’s perfect when you’re an immigrant and you come here and you get to put your culture in a little box and take it off the shelf for festivals. But it’s interculturalism that is going to continually reinvent and create contemporary Canadian culture.”
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