Vancouver has a reputation for having some of the best Cantonese food in North America, something many locals have come to be proud of. But did you know that in the mid-1970s, local authorities shut down many of the Cantonese BBQ meat shops in Vancouver’s Chinatown? Apart from discrediting a centuries-old method of cooking, these closures also threatened the livelihood of many people in the community and access to their cultural foods. Eventually, activists in Chinatowns across Canada did prevail, and it’s thanks to them we still get to enjoy traditional Cantonese BBQ in Vancouver. Learn more about this piece of meaty history in our upcoming “Making Space” event!
Inspired by the theme of food and restaurant culture of the “Seat at the Table” exhibition on Chinese migration and its role in shaping BC history, all are welcome to this lunch and learn program. Join us over a delicious BBQ meat lunch to watch the short documentary, Under Fire: Inside a Chinese Roasted Meats Shop in Vancouver and meet the filmmakers. Chinese Canadian and “Foodways” and Restaurants anthropologist, Dr. Imogene Lim of Vancouver Island University, will also be present for the discussion. After the screening, participants will be broken into smaller discussion groups to share thoughts and experiences and to learn from each other, what it means to “make space” for food cultures as an important part of one’s heritage.
This event is a collaboration with Heritage Vancouver Society and UBC’s Public Humanities Hub.
Tickets to this event include complimentary admission to MOV for the day and a BBQ Set Lunch.
Date: Saturday, November 19, 2022
Time: 12:00 - 2:30pm
Tickets: $45 General Admission, $35 for MOV Members, $30 for Student and Senior (A service fee, processing fee and GST is also applied to ticket sales) MOV members and students, please be prepared to show your valid identification along with your ticket at the door.
If you are having trouble using the embedded form above, please try to reserve your ticket directly on Eventbrite here.
Highlight Video
FRENCH CAPTION
Le mois dernier, le MOV a organisé un midi-conférence et une projection du documentaire "Under Fire: Inside a Chinese Roasted Meat Shop in Vancouver”.
Cet événement était inspiré du thème de la culture culinaire et des restaurants issu de l’exposition “A Seat at the Table” sur l’immigration chinoise et son rôle dans la construction de l’histoire de la C.-B.
Après la projection, les participants se sont divisés en petits groupes de discussion pour partager leurs réflexions et expériences et pour apprendre les uns des autres, sur ce que cela signifie de “faire de la place”aux cultures culinaires comme partie intégrante du patrimoine d’une personne.
Cet événement a été réalisé en collaboration avec @public.humanities.hub.ubc @heritage_vancouver
Guests
This photo of Imogene Lim is done in portrait-style against a plain grey background. She is Chinese Canadian woman. Her salt and pepper-hued hair is sported in a stylish pixie cut. In this photo, she looks straight at the camera with a bright and friendly smile with her eyes and her teeth. She wears: fashionable half-rimmed glasses in a blue and purple tortoise-shell style; golden earrings shaped like goldfish with lush tails; a sleeveless linen-like top in greyish brown stripes.
Dr. Imogene Lim - Anthropologist
A descendant of Cumberland and Vancouver’s Chinatown and anthropologist by trade, Dr. Lim’s expertise on Chinese Canadian communities, especially on Vancouver Island, spans well over two decades and her work has included numerous collaborations with local museums. She is a founding member of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, and worked with the BC Legacy Initiatives Advisory Council on the Historic Sites and Celebration book projects. She co-developed the exhibit, 150 Years and Counting: Fighting for Justice on the Coast (2017), and served as a member of the exhibition advisory committee for the Museum of Vancouver’s (MOV) A Seat at the Table (2020), including the writing of panel texts. In 2016, she contributed selections from her Chinese restaurant menu collection to MOV’s All Together Now exhibit, as well as participated in its outreach programming. In 2021, she was awarded the Province of BC Medal for Good Citizenship.
This full-length photo of Christy Fong is taken outdoors on a sunny day. She stands in front of a wide and short wooden door that looks to be part of a shed. Christy is a Han Chinese woman with long, layered dark hair in a side-part. She wears round squarish glasses in a thin dark rim and medium-sized hoop earrings on her ears. She has a warm and friendly smile on her face, which is turned to the camera while the rest of her body is turned slightly towards her left, arms crossed confidently. She is wearing a crisp white shirt that is French-tucked into black and belted trousers that are cuffed slightly above her ankle. She wears black loafers with laces.
Christy Fong - Filmmaker
Christy Fong is a Han Chinese settler with a background in community storytelling and digital humanities, exploring local histories via art, technology, and community engagement. Her award-winning thesis studied the 1968-1979 Barbecue Meats Protests in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Her other projects include a listening party to return the Pender Guy Radio Show back to Chinatown after a thirty-year absence, and a virtual field trip of Vancouver’s Chinatown based on SKY Lee’s Disappearing Moon Café. Most recently, she and Denise Fong collaborated on richmondfoodstories.ca, an online art exhibit that reflects our culturally diverse and intergenerational experiences with changing access to food during COVID-19.
This medium-shot photo of Denise Fong is taken outdoors in a warm natural light. Denise is a Chinese Canadian Woman with dark brown reddish hair in a side-part that goes past her shoulders. She wears metal-rimmed glasses in a deep plum colour and some golden dangling earrings. Slightly visible under the dark navy blazer she wears, is a greyish blue top. She smiles at the camera as she leans against a red metal post with her arms crossed. On her right hand is a black smartwatch. Blurred out in the background is a metal gate and two windowed red doors.
Denise Fong - Filmmaker
Denise Fong (方靜怡) is a 1.5 generation Chinese Canadian with roots in Hong Kong, Toisan China, New Zealand and San Francisco. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia, with a special interest in public history, digital media and Chinese Canadian history. Since 2009, Denise has coordinated a number of historical research and public history projects, including SFU’s From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration and UBC’s Chinese Canadian Stories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past. She co-curated two award-winning Chinese Canadian exhibitions locally — Burnaby Village Museum’s Across the Pacific exhibition and the Chinese Canadian Museum of BC/Museum of Vancouver’s A Seat at the Table exhibition. She currently serves as the research director for UBC's Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies.
Moderators
This close-up photo of Bill Yuen is in grey scale. Bill is a Chinese Canadian man. His hair is dark with a slight unstructured fringe and length-wise it is on the shorter side but tapers just in front of his ears. He has deep-set eyes that look slightly off camera. He has a 5 o’clock shadow. His face is of a neutral almost pensive expression. He wears a crisp white collared button-down shirt with a dark cardigan. The sharp contrasts of the photo, with Bill leaning more to the right of the frame and off-center, and a slightly blurred edge on the top of his head gives the portrait a very dynamic and artistic feel.
Bill Yuen - Heritage Vancouver Society
Bill is the Executive Director of Heritage Vancouver Society. Bill is dedicated to an understanding and practice of heritage that is centred on people and their ways of living and experiencing. He is committed to how diverse public memories, social histories, rituals and meanings of place can be better understood, experienced and appreciated through the environment around us.
In this close-up photo, Sydney Lines faces the camera and behind her is a blurred backdrop of a window. Sydney is a Caucasian woman with auburn hair worn in a shoulder-length bob with a slight wave to it. She wears dark-rimmed rectangular glasses that compliment her angular face-shape and features. She wears a bold and flattering shade of red lipstick on her lips, slightly upturned into a smile. Her overall expression is one of assuredness. She wears a cozy-looking thick knit sage-green turtleneck.
Sydney Lines - UBC Public Humanities Hub
Sydney Lines (she/her/hers) has several years experience working in higher education, museums, and in various kinds of cultural programming. She is a multifaceted creative thinker who loves big ideas, memorable stories, and gathering communities through participation in arts and culture. She's a UBC Public Scholar completing her PhD in English and Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives for the UBC Public Humanities Hub.
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