A Taste of Hong Kong takes a bite out of the region’s history and culture
Food plays a leading role in the Pi Theatre production starring Derek Chan, presented in association with Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre
Derek Chan, A Taste of Hong Kong. Photo by Chelsey Stuyt
Pi Theatre presents A Taste of Hong Kong in association with Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre at Vancity Culture Lab from March 6 to 15
THE TITLE OF the new play A Taste of Hong Kong is literal: audiences will get to sample a few of the region’s iconic dishes all to learn about its culture. Produced by Pi Theatre in association with Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, the work takes a bite out of Hong Kong’s history and reflects on its current state of affairs.
Local actor Derek Chan, cofounder of rice & beans theatre, plays the show’s host, Jackie Z, who leads the look at Hong Kong history through food. He was born and raised in colonial (pre-1997) Hong Kong and was old enough to remember staying up past midnight to watch the Handover ceremony. He left when he was 16, spent two years in Norway, and then ended up here, going on to study theatre at SFU.
The food in A Taste of Hong Kong are items Chan grew up with—“things I still seek out when I’m having a bad day here in Canada because I don’t have family here, especially curry fish balls, pineapple buns, fish siu mai, soy drinks in tetrapak boxes... Street food, snacks that you just grab and go and feel perfectly content demolishing on the sidewalk,” he tells Stir. “Oh, and of course we are going to be tasting mooncakes and congee. I’d like to think that these are also food items that a lot of Vancouverites would at least have heard of before but maybe have not had the chance to try a bite or two yet. This show is the perfect chance.
“The stories behind these unassuming gems are fascinating,” Chan continues. “How did curry fish balls and mooncakes both inspire an entire revolution and social movement? Why are pineapple buns called pineapple buns when there isn’t a single sliver of pineapple in it? What’s the difference between siu mai at dim sum and fish siu mai on the street? I can’t wait to share all these stories and food with the audience.
“It’s funny, because the food is truly what makes this show so human, so relatable across the board,” he says. “Food is really how we show love to each other. It is a love letter to a place that we love so much but might never see again.”
While food itself may be a light subject matter and the play is joyful, the themes in A Taste of Hong Kong—which will travel to Toronto in May—are serious.
“It does touch on some political ideas connected to Hong Kong and Hong Kong’s current situation and relationship with Beijing,” says director Richard Wolfe of Pi Theatre. “For me, although I’m not Chinese and don’t have direct connection to Hong Kong, I do see patterns in the kind of authoritarian repression that people are experiencing around the world—including Hong Kong, which is a specific example of a kind of cultural repression. There are certainly reasons I suppose in the minds of the capital and the government of China why they believe that their vision of Hong Kong is the correct one, but it’s not really taking into account the will of the people of the place.
“Some of the laws that have been enacted since the handover and quite recently are quite severe in terms of their crackdown on dissent or even on a certain kind of speech, things people are not allowed to say,” Wolfe adds. “I’m interested in any kind of artistic examination of models of our current streams of authoritarianism that seem to be running around the world. As the producer, I’m supporting the artists who have direct ties to Hong Kong, which include the playwright and the actor, who do have ties to that place as well as several of our collaborators on the piece.”
Written by an anonymous author, the project indirectly shines a light on the reality of self-censorship in Canada. Wolfe says that despite all the current talk of free speech, the playwright did not put their identity forward to claim authorship of this script because they are afraid of reprisals by the security services of a foreign government. In other words, some Canadian artists living in Canada don’t feel they have the artistic freedom to reflect their political views through artistic expression here in our country. Wolfe says this kind of coercion is a common page in every authoritarian’s playbook.
“There is a real hesitancy for Canadian artists in Canada to speak to this issue because of a kind of a fear of how the powers that be may respond to them, not necessarily directly to them but to people still living in Hong Kong,” Wolfe says. “So this is a real fear. It bothers me personally that people have to live with this kind of self-censorship but also it really points out how art can be a threatening force and a powerful force as an expression of ideas and opinions or as an instigator of questions.”
Chan sees the playwright’s decision to remain anonymous as daring (by writing the piece in the first place) and also caring (by protecting their loved ones).
“Unfortunately, in practical terms, it means that the policies that the Chinese government has implemented are working,” Chan says. “It means policies like the National Security Law in Hong Kong are working as intended; to my understanding, the law states that overseas or foreign persons and entities are not exempt. It means we know what they are capable of and how petty they can get. It means that nobody is entirely safe anymore in that sense. We’re talking about kids getting arrested for posting stuff on the internet, or seniors for singing banned pro-democracy songs in public. I’m not even talking about those who risked their lives on the streets back in 2019 and ’20. Yes, those are mostly examples in Hong Kong, but things like this haven’t not happened on Canadian soil before, under the same influences. So while Canadian artists feel pretty low priority in the grand scheme of things, even within Canada, the risk is really not negligible anymore, as global geopolitics continue to complicate by the day.”
Chan has been making shows about Hong Kong for the last five years. He says theatre is one way of taking action.
“As artists, I don’t know how much tangible impact we will ever have within our own lifetimes, but that’s not the point of doing any of this,” Chan says. “If my parents didn’t keep telling me that it was my dad who took me, a toddler, to the first June 4th protest at Victoria Park in Hong Kong back in 1989, that metaphorical torch, intended to be passed down to me, would’ve long been extinguished by the times. My point is that one day it will happen, as long as we keep the memories alive and start to look forward. Stories like A Taste of Hong Kong are our way of remembering, acknowledging, and grounding, a way to assess what we have now, together.
“I’ve said this before in relation to a different project: positive societal progress takes generations,” the theatre artist continues. “I’m really okay to not see my Hong Kong again during my lifetime, but I’m not okay for that Hong Kong of mine to be forever erased. I’m not okay for that Hong Kong to be disappeared, so to speak. At the end of the day, this is the right thing to do. This is one of the few things I can do, just like many, many other folks out there fighting for many, many right things in this world right now. We do what we can to find and help each other. I am just glad that there is now a bunch of us here in theatre keeping Hong Kong stories alive through various diasporic lenses and intersectional filters.” 
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