the UGLY Chinese Canadian

Last month a nice little gathering was planned in our swell little Chinatown.

It was a gathering of some of the community’s finest collection of photo op seekers – all hoping to cash in on the opportunity presented with the Olympics!

Akin to flies attracted to dog poop, popularity-starved politicians had made bee lines to the city of Vancouver, to posture their faces onto the many potential mugshots opportuned with the large international winter sporting event.

One of the happy politicians who was planning a photo op for his electioneering photo album was none other than our prorogue happy Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

It was a reciprocal and symbiotic photo opportunity.

Vancouver’s photo-op collecting Chinese community unpacked their collective trunks, dusted off, and took out their mothballed finest attire to welcome our nation’s top Prorogugee maker… aka Numba One round eye.

New year’s card from Numba One round eye

The Chinese Cultural Centre’s multi-purpose hall was booked for this key event.

Yes excitement and electricity was in the air. The whole venue, reeked of mothballs and cha-siu.

The keynote number one round eye and his portly right hand scribe, MP Jason Kenney was to meet and greet this crowd of select Chinese photo Props.

The crowd of over 150 waited in anticipation with Mr. Kenney at the CCC multi-purpose hall, and then it happened.

Some friggen S.O.B. chained the doors up, and prevented anyone from entering and exiting the venue.

Oh it was a frustrating scene!

Locked in.

Phone calls were made to the Vancouver Police department, but the police informed the organizers that it was a private matter… and “deal with it yourselves”.

So the clock ticked away.

Minutes passed, then an hour.

They were stuck. Stuck inside a dingy, urine wafted hall.  How they must have pined to go outside and enjoy the lovely sunshine.

You see, outdoors in the plaza, in the wonderful unseasonably warm sunny weather, were a bunch of whiny socialist sorts picketing the arrival of numba one round eye.

However, back inside the Chinese Cultural centre hall…

Murmurs of freedom, after an hour and a half, maybe two hours later… the photo-op-desiring crowd was finally freed.

But boy, were they ever royally pissed.

Old numba one round eyes eventually popped by, and was rumoured to only had shown up for a few minutes to take a few photos for material for his upcoming election ad efforts.

Hey you Meesta Happa, you takee picture with me … I okay vote for you. Okay?

Then the blame game started.

Must have been them friggen gawddamn sonabitchee left wing New Democrats came the first pointing finger.

“Was not!” yelled the left wing nut.

“Was so!” yelled the Conservative brown noser.

Shouts of “Kai Dai !” and “dillnama“, and other Chinese swear words wafted over the scent of mothballs.

Hmmmmm.

The UGLY Chinese Canadian wondered, ‘why the Chinese Conservative crowd didn’t call the Fire department?’

After all, is it not a by-law infraction when exit doors are locked?

Not too swift these right wing sorts, eh?

But the funny part was that – as was discovered later, there were other exit doors in the building that were operable and unlocked. But no one had bothered to check the other doors!

Duh.

Here are a few stories that picked up on this sad story of left vs right chinese wing nuts :

http://www.straight.com/article-295841/vancouver/ndp-shown-disrespect-parade-organizers

http://www.canada.com/news/Protesters+chain+doors+centre+ahead+visit/2547807/story.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/harper-targeted-by-insite-supporters/article1463956/

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/Democrat+wants+apology/2557510/story.html

But that’s not the end of this intriguing story.

There’s more.

The soddy hapless left wing party, the New Democrats (NDP) got blamed. In fact, MP Libby Davies was blamed to be the brains behind this!

We’ll post that on part 2 of Vancouver’s Chinese wingnuts initiate mudslinging.

Never a dull moment in Vancouver’s Chinatown, eh.

Over the past few years, the UGLY Chinese Canadian has had the honour of meeting a number of people who were from the entertainment and identity making era of this community known as “Chinatown”.

Historians often speak of a “Golden Age” for Chinatown, and often identify several Golden eras.  But the one golden heyday that is often agreed by all, is the time period from the late 50’s to mid 60’s, when families were reunited, and the rise of the baby boom generation.

A number of these people are getting up there in age, and there are many fascinating stories  about the gritty and colourful days of old Chinatown.

The neon lit streets, the cabarets, the business of show business… the night life. The new found pride and identity, and the dangers.

Vancouver’s Chinatown today is a shell of what it used to be.

Many of today’s storefronts have security bars, padlocks and security fences instead of the colourful signage and lights of a past era. And worst, some of the shops sit empty with boarded up windows and doors.

Comparisons have been made between the chinatowns throughout North America, in particular, the chinatowns of San Francisco, New York and Boston. Our American chinatown communities are in a much healthier state than the community we have in Vancouver.

What went wrong?

The UGLY Chinese Canadian blog will initiate a series of blog postings exploring this thought.

Our first in this series will explore the historic context of chinatown as an exotic and mysterious place.  What better place to reflect on this distinction than by reviewing the films made on and made by the children of North America’s Chinese communities – through time and through place.

From last year’s seminal documentary “Hollywood Chinese“, from the PBS program, “American Masters“:

From the sexed-up Suzie Wong to the kung fu fighting Bruce Lee, THIRTEEN’s American Masters tackles issues of race and representation in Hollywood Chinese. Watch a preview:

The 90-minute film illuminates a century of Chinese American cinematic history, from rare silent classics such as Marion Wong’s The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916) to the contemporary critical and commercial success of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005). Timed for broadcast during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, American Masters: Hollywood Chinese premieres nationally Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS. The film features a treasure trove of clips, punctuated with personal accounts from the movie industry’s most accomplished Chinese and Chinese American talent.

“American Masters is proud to share with our viewers the extraordinary stories of pioneering Chinese and Chinese American artists in Hollywood,” says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters, a six-time winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. “Their immeasurable contribution to American cinema continues today with a new wave of critically-acclaimed Asian films and Oscar-winning blockbusters. The film gives strong perspective to this little-known chapter of motion picture history.”

American feature films often portray the Chinese as exotic and devious characters – or simply the “other” – reflecting the entertainment industry’s inherent racial prejudices as well as its fascination with the Far East. Hollywood Chinese features candid interviews and back lot stories from artists in front of and behind the camera, including Joan Chen, James Hong, David Henry Hwang, Nancy Kwan, Ang Lee, Christopher Lee, Justin Lin, Luise Rainer, Amy Tan, Wayne Wang, and BD Wong.

The documentary chronicles the full gamut of Chinese representation in Hollywood. It brings to light the controversial yellowface casting of Luise Rainer in The Good Earth (1937) and the stereotyped caricatures played by Chinese American actors such as James Hong in Bloodsport 2 & 3 (1996 and 1996). It also addresses the eventual trend of Asian empowerment in films such as Flower Drum Song (1961) staring Nancy Kwan and the film-adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993) directed by Wayne Wang.

Please visit the Hollywood Chinese website for more information on this interesting effort.

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