 of people in the room, right? An executive director of Playwrights Theatre Center Up? That's a good idea. And stand behind our greats Bob and director. So I think all of you are probably aware all of our work and play takes place on the unceded territories of the Slewa Tuth, Squamish, and Musqueam nations. And one of the things that PTC is really interested in is what all of these people, so one of them for the city. It's an exhibit called Seth Man. And it looks at the 5,000 year history of the Musqueam people on this land. And you can go to the Museum of Vancouver and see all kinds of living history that is animated by videos of artists who are working in the community, elders and cultural knowledge keepers. And it's a tremendous way to understand the land and the people whose place we're on. The Slewa Tuth First Nation just had a walk to raise funds for solar panels on October 30th. And you can keep in touch with the projects that they're supporting on their Facebook page, which is for the Slewa Tuth Sacred Trust. And that is at TWN Sacred Trust on Facebook. Very exciting, right in our own neighborhood, the new Strathcona Library branch is going to be opening sometime soon. They say end of 2006 and maybe the beginning of 2007. And you can find out how to pronounce the name of the Strathcona branch, which is a Musqueam word, which means we are one. And I'm gonna give it a try. It's nuts to nuts. So let's all meet nuts to nuts to meet, read books, learn about all of the cultures that are represented here in Strathcona. And also I'd like to mention a special event happening through the heart of the city festival, our wonderful partners on the event here, the Survivors Totem Pool Raising, which is the gathering at Main and Hastings. The processional start at 12 noon this Saturday, November 5th. And the Totem Pool will be raised in Pigeon Park. According to the Sacred Circle Society who are leading the initiative, the pool honors the many people who have arrived and lived in the downtown Eastside as survivors. So it's a really incredible opportunity to take part in reconciliation activities here in the downtown Eastside. So in recognizing the territories that we're living on, I think it's a daily activity that we can all participate in and it's incredibly enriching to our own lives. So over to you, Melanie. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you very much. So folks, what we're gonna start with is we're going to start with Derek Chan, and he is going to be... So this is an excerpt of the play that we've translated and performed in September down in Richmond. So the story is that the character I play is the little sous chef and we're supposed to be doing a demonstration cooking show, but the big masters are away on important business. So the little sous chef has to step up the plate and do a great job. And in this play, we will cook a dish live in front of the audience. It's a fish dish. It's a Filipino dish called Redie and Om Bangus. So you hollow out the fish and then you stop the fish. And then previously in the play, we have named the fish Bong Bong. Okay. Here we go. Ah. Maximo D'Archu said that the Redie and Om Bangus is one of the national symbol of the Philippines. The Redie and Om Bangus is the northern part of the Philippines, and it has a special mountain range. And it's right over there. It's the southern part of the Philippines. The biggest city in the Philippines is the Philippines. It's the highest city in the Philippines. The Redie and Om Bangus is the capital of the Philippines for hundreds of years. And the fish will come out naturally. Maximo D'Archu said that they're going to catch fish and ask questions. The law is passed and the law is passed. Fortunately, the time has come. Since today, most of the fresh fish we bought on the street are fish, lard, or vegetable products. The fish market is a very simple concept. It's like opening a club. First, we have some pretty girls and male and female partners. Then we open our eyes and close our eyes. Let them have a free time together. Let's make friends. Finally, we can make friends if we don't feel like it. Open the fish market to explore the history of lard. Maximo D'Archu said that there are already a few thousand years of Chinese-American culture. But about 100 years ago, the fish industry began to flourish and the great industrial era began. There are far-fetched enterprises. If there are tens of thousands of factories in the fish market, the production of lard and the production of lard can turn the club into a super-sandals. I haven't had a home for a long time, actually. To put it bluntly, our family is a business of thousands of seafood. It's a food business of D'Archu. It's a world-class product of the market and the factory. Also, in this factory, we can see the previous manager of the family. Before me, I want to tell you a story about my brother. He's called Pierre Ibasan. Pierre and Bong-Bong were all born in a big company. About 10 years ago, he worked in the seafood industry as a first-class procurator. Actually, Pierre is now a seafood entrepreneur. Because he used to work in the Aitap tribe in the 18th century. Now, you have to understand that the Aitap people are a very strong nation. They have their own way of doing things. Nothing can change them. Even the people of West Asia, the people of Aimee, and even the people of Japan, can't influence the Aitap people. No matter what, the Aitap people have to stick to their power, stick to their traditions, and take on the Ice Age. But our Pierre is different. 10 years ago, he talked to his boss. He said, the things of God, there's no use in the old man's superstition. He went to the construction site to work. Now, we're cutting a knife behind the fishing line. We'll probably see a little bit of blood in the house. That's normal. Just like a teacher said, the sharpness of a knife doesn't mean that it's a unique thing. Now, we're going to use a round knife to cut the skin and the meat carefully. If you do the right thing, it should be like cutting a牙 bone that's as round as a fish's body. I think when Pierre said he was going to use the knife to cut the skin, he started to feel so guilty. But think about it. Every day, his boss worked so hard that it took him 15 hours to catch the fish. After that, he even sold the fish to restaurants and restaurants. Even if Pierre and his boss were so good at fishing, they still had to work as a salesman. Speaking of which, I'm using the Maximum series and it's really useful. It's a hand-to-hand knife. It's a high-tech, hard-earned knife. It's a long-awaited, long-awaited knife. It's the best. Of course it's Maximum. Pierre and his family started selling fish. Before the opening of the sea, Pierre's bad boss used to sell fish every six days. That's right. Every six days. But even if it was so expensive, they still had to work hard. And their fish was less than a year old. I heard that even if the whole village caught the fish, they couldn't catch the fish that was on the island. Fortunately, the sea is the only way to start a business. We don't need to rely on the fishing industry. There are scientists, scientists, and MBA teams. But the future of the stock market is enough. The fishing industry is the only way to start a business. The fishing industry is the only way to start a business. But the fishing industry is the only way to start a business. And the fishing industry is the only way to start a business. Let's start with the bottom two. The prices of restaurants and restaurants are lower. But they're more affordable than the price of a boat. And you're asking me to sign the contract to join the Tian Ha Sea to start a business. Now the sea is the only way to satisfy Nam Ka Yan Wan's needs and to satisfy the whole country. Even the taste of the law is not enough for you to eat. I'll tell you what. Everybody's a winner! If they wake up a little, it won't be a big deal. It's a long time ago. MIRROR is so far away. Piax will come to our world-class construction site. He has been working hard for 9 years. Although he is working hard for the sake of the fish, he can do it. And Piax's workers are the same every week. They don't need to worry about the weather. They don't need to worry about the rain. The most important thing is that Piax will be able to provide his and his wife's quality. And Piax only needs to stand here for 8 hours every day. He is sure that he will deliver the package before we put it on the table. The fish that will come back to you is the basic food safety standard. It won't be as easy as it seems. Thanks, Melanie. Well, in keeping with the theme of food and culture, I have a little short story that I wrote. But first, I thought I'd share an interesting tidbit about myself. I didn't fully realize I was Chinese until I was almost 25. Now, obviously, I was aware of the fact. I couldn't not be aware. I mean, the signs were all there growing up. High academic achiever. Living in constant fear of failure from an early age. Unbelievably overbearing mother. And we didn't keep kosher, so I could reasonably deduce that I was, in fact, Chinese. But being Chinese never really seemed to matter until my mid-20s. Up to that point, I'd followed the regular life trajectory of a Chinese boy growing up in the 70s and 80s. I skipped a few grades because this was before they realized that this stunts your social development. I studied engineering because that's what all my friends were doing. And eventually I joined the workforce. But about five years into a very mediocre engineering career, I decided that I wanted to be a professional actor. Best decision I ever made. And now I honestly can't imagine choosing another path. But back then, there was a price to pay for my newfound freedom. In the eyes of my peers and colleagues, I ceased to simply be a person and I became a Chinese person. As awful and tedious as I found engineering, it's one saving grace was the fact that it's more or less a meritocracy. None of my professors cared that I was Chinese, neither did any of my employers. In fact, you think about it, a lot of Chinese mom-approved professions are merit-based. Do you really care what race your neurosurgeon is? No, you just want to know that the person drilling into your skull knows what they're doing. But acting is a very different animal. Acting was a real eye-opener. Because you don't get to define yourself in the theater and film world. For the most part, other people are always defining you. So if you're, for example, if you're overweight, you're appropriate for these roles and these roles only. If you're a beautiful young woman, I can cast you in these kind of roles until you turn 35 and the world doesn't care about you anymore. And if you're a 24-year-old Chinese man, these are your options. So that's when I had my awakening. I am Chinese. This is now the first thing my peers see about me. I thought I had many dimensions and qualities, but this apparently is now my primary dimension. My prospects and my aspirations are now very much informed by my ethnicity. Every performing artist of color has a similar awakening. And unless you have some very strong support systems, it can really play havoc on your psyche. The ones who survive are the ones who find strategies to define themselves and who refuse to let others do it for them. Part of my strategy was to embrace my Chinese identity without letting it define me as an artist. So I learned about my heritage in a way that I hadn't really thought about before I started a Chinese Canadian. I started to read about Chinese history and the history of the Chinese diaspora in North America. And as a playwright, I usually write plays with Chinese themes, not because I'm a one-trick pony, but for very pragmatic reasons. If I'm not adding to Chinese stories to the Canadian theater canon, then who's going to do it? All of this is a very long preamble to say that in my mid-20s I became Chinese. And I navigated my way through life as a Chinese man until a few years ago, when in my mid-40s I went to a Hong Kong cafe and discovered that I'm not really Chinese. Chung Chao is an outlying island about 10 kilometers southwest of Hong Kong. It's like the Bowen Island of Hong Kong. And Chung Chao is typically where I stay when I'm working in Hong Kong because that's where my long-time collaborators live and they have a spare flap on the island. Although Chung Chao is just a 45-minute ferry ride away from central Hong Kong, it's like a different world. Hong Kong is all glass, steel, and concrete jutting up towards the sky. Chung Chao is grass and trees and beaches. Hong Kong is power suits in high fashion. Chung Chao is definitely shorts and flip flops. Cars are prohibited on Chung Chao so everyone bicycles. So when I think of Chung Chao, I think of the bikes and I think of the smell of dried salt fish and shrimp. I think of the amazing cafes there. There are Cha Chantang and Da Paidong everywhere on the island. Now, I don't speak any Cantonese. My parents are from Manila and our home dialect is Fukian. I speak a very modest amount of Mandarin but virtually no Cantonese. And this has never been an impediment working in Hong Kong because anyone speaking only Chinese can get by in Hong Kong very much a testament to its colonial past. But Chung Chao is completely different. Chung Chao is a blue-collar fishing village that never had to cater to British overlords. So there are plenty of cafes where there's no one who speaks a word of English and the menus are all Chinese only. And one of these Chinese only cafes became my local hangout for seven weeks. Gold Hing was the name of the cafe. The only bit of English signage there. I think the Cantonese name of the place was Gam Hing so it got translated as Gold Hing. I didn't choose this place because of the food or the service and I certainly didn't love being a functional illiterate there. Gold Hing had two things going for it. It had outdoor tables with a great view of the harbor and it was the only place within walking distance with Wi-Fi. And so every morning I'd go to breakfast at Gold Hing with my laptop. I checked my mail, skyped the office and suffered the indignity of being Gold Hing's least favorite customer. You know those heartwarming fish out of water stories where a foreigner shows up in a strange place and is adopted by the locals despite the fact he doesn't fit in. This isn't one of those stories. I'm going to hazard a guess that if I had been a blonde Nordic type they might have taken me in. But the problem was in their eyes I should have been able to speak the language. And I tried. Believe me, I tried. I would say Josan every morning. And when I'd order I'd say depending on which waitress I'd had I'd either get a derisive snort or a tisk of disgust. And how did I order? I used the point and lego method. There were basically 12 items on the menu and I'd cycle through them every day. But the problem with the options every time I ordered I'd be offered like a choice. Do you want this or do you want that? And every time I would stare like an idiot until the waitress just decided to pick for me. I did learn one phrase. At about week number three I figured out they were always asking me what to drink. So I'd always order the same thing. Dong Nai Cha, a Tao team which is my very poor attempt to say cold milk tea unsweetened. And the waitress, one waitress would actually get so mad at me because I was mispronouncing this so badly so she would always correct me by re-pronouncing what I said louder and slower. And I'd say, I'll just go with the bill. And to those of you who don't look like me I encourage you to learn these phrases because they will love you over there. So it wasn't until my final week in Chung Chao in October that someone there attempted to speak some English to me. The owner who was always at the cash register said, you Korean. And I shook my head and said, no, Chinese. And he said, Chinese and once again said, no, me. I'm Chinese. And everyone in the cafe laughed and the owner said, you're not Chinese. I wanted to say goodbye to them to say I was going home to Canada. I wish I'd had some way to thank them for feeding me for two months. But of course I lacked the words because I'm not really Chinese. And with that new information I went home to Richmond. Just as a little postscript I have ended up having to pass through Hong Kong two months later on route to China. So I visited my good friends on Chung Chao. And out of habit, I guess I went back to Goldhang for breakfast. I didn't even need to use Wi-Fi. I just went back for whatever reason. And for the first time the wait staff would never have been particularly welcoming. They greeted me like an old friend. The surliest waiters who thought I was a bit challenged brought me a cold unsweetened milk tea unprompted. So to them I may not be Chinese, but at that point I was at last a welcome guest. Our moderator today is Kathy Dufflin, is the Dramaturg at PTC. She's been a Dramaturg. And thank you Melanie for greeting us all and taking care of the dumpling challenge and lowering microphones and doing all that. I'd just like you to know that if you want more water for your tea just take the lid off. That usually works in many of the restaurants that I've been to. And someone will notice that and bring it. It looks like they're getting ready to serve the dumplings. Dumplings are on their way out. Dumplings are on their way out. So I'd like to thank Derek again for doing that reading. Derek has written a wonderful essay about translating the play that we've posted on our website. You'll find out a lot about the language and a lot about Derek that you never thought you wanted to know. And I'd like to make a note of Giovanni wrote the play in English originally and I'd like to start by asking you why you wanted it translated into Cantonese. Oh well it wasn't so much that it started like I wanted it translated. I really had a strong desire to work with Derek to do a show at Gateway in Cantonese. As I recall, we had a meeting almost a year ago back in December and we were just talking about what are some plays that were either written in Cantonese or that would be good for translating. And we threw out a whole bunch of different titles and then I guess at one point it dawned on me, hey, what about this? I think I asked you if you cook, right? Yeah you do. Yeah and then I said, yeah, I can cook. Yeah. So it wasn't so much born out of a desire to have the piece translated. I really was dying to have Derek do something in Cantonese on our stage and it just turned out that it was my play in the end. Well, we'll talk some more about that. Yeah. Andrea you may or may not know has been recently besides being a producer and all a director and just about everything there is on a board of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre is also an actor and I didn't know you were an actor before you were everything else so but she was recently in a production of King of the Yeas and I'd like I heard some great stories from the people who were in that show that suggested that it was a really unique experience to be Asian actors together and I'd love to hear more about that. For the first time we had a workshop read through and looking around the table we all actually all the actors and the team sort of we knew each other but we were never all in the same room together working on the same project and it was such a that was sort of a very wonderful moment of like oh we're actually all together because usually the experience in theatre I found is that there'll be one of me and maybe maybe another Asian person and that's about it and generally there's not all that much diversity in the cast so but this was also like the first time I've ever experienced where my cultural background informed my work like a lot of times I'll go into a Shakespeare or I go into a modern play but that doesn't take into consideration sort of how I was raised and even just certain cultural traditions that I was raised with and that was actually really interesting to have to access this sort of my Chinese history my Chinese ancestry and the culture that I was raised in the role itself and also I'm not really used to a role generally as a person of colour there aren't a lot of roles written for you in English and Lauren was an Asian-American female who was in her early 30s and I'm an Asian-Canadian female in my early 30s so that was a big first and it was really delightful to work on that cast in that way I love your culture informing the work even one is language I didn't have a lot of Cantonese but having to speak Cantonese again there's something that almost happens in your brain and just having I don't know even speaking Cantonese all of a sudden just reminds me of my family and the language of my family and there's something about accessing that and then there are little points even the dynamic between the father and the daughter so Giovanni played your father Giovanni played my father and that aspect of because Lauren is quite feisty and she's quite independent but culturally and this spans other cultures but I was very much raised when you speak to your dad no matter how upset you are or whatever there's a certain level of respect and there's a line that you just don't cross and I think that really informed how I spoke to Giovanni's character there was always a certain level of respect and respect for authority so like little things like that that would inform the role you look like you wanted to jump in there no Bob you've been spent many years caring very deeply about preservation of culture in Chinatown and I was wondering if you thought having seen I think you saw both of these plays that if you think that theater has anything to bring to help in that fighting almost definitely it's a medium which brings about the awareness of my generation subsequent generations about expressing the pride of being Chinese for me anyway and I really think theater such as King of the Yeas and and Test of Empire sorry how it brings that out how it brings it out and make it more appealing to the masses but to me it really it's a great affirmation about being Chinese and I really think theater is a very expressive way of doing that I was thinking about you saw it in Cantonese right yes did you ever see it in English what Test of Empire no well first of all it was in Cantonese but English subtitles oh right because I could never understand it if it was in Chinese I you know because I'm third generation and I do recall some words that were spoken like a little semblance of it but the idea of having English subtitles really appealed to me yeah so Derek talked a little bit about while you were in the process of translating about this that you've been studying writing in English for what 14 years yeah something like that yeah and now all of a sudden you went back to Cantonese and what was that like it's I think I've said that before it's kind of like making up with the family member that you had a really big fight with 14 odd years after I remember some of you know this story when I first moved here I tried really hard to sound Canadian to behave like a Canadian I would avoid speaking Cantonese and working in Cantonese but I don't know something just changed in the past year or so that something changed in me that I feel like it's a part of me that I can't get rid of and I should not get rid of it and yeah it's it's a nice feeling in a way but it also feels a little bit like I'm making up for lost time can you talk about that a little more yeah because when I first moved here I really feel that oh I'm in someone else's country now I gotta speak a language I gotta be like one of them and that's because otherwise I'm gonna sound stupid they're gonna think I'm stupid I'm not gonna get any I'm not gonna get any work here in Vancouver and so on but now that I'm here come to think of it I think it's a bit of a silly thought really oh I was recently doing a project that requires me to speak some of my lines with a Cantonese accent and I was just lamenting to one of my co-performers that oh I honestly don't know where mine went and not so much in a good way that oh you sound like you're from here I used to be pretty proud of that when people tell me oh yeah I didn't know you were you spent 16 years in Hong Kong I used to think oh yeah great I made it but now when I hear that I think oh great I have the ability to do that but then also I think whoa hang on a sec what did I get rid of exactly so yeah I guess it's a good and bad what I did to myself yeah Giovanni, you want to say something? well that kind of resonates with me because my formative years I was actually very ashamed to be Chinese it was part of being that local born got assimilated into the white culture as much as possible because of the conditioning that my parents had and wanting to be more white than wanted to relegate anything of my culture local born Chinese culture and then getting passed through all that and then later on in life having a stronger awareness of my culture and heritage and wanting to learn how to speak Cantonese instead of having to and then we get this guy here coming from Hong Kong who speaks Cantonese but he tried he chose to try his best to learn to speak English not so much to assimilate but also not so much assimilation but communication that's the way I see it with Derek and so it's learning about being Chinese from different aspect from my aspect and from Derek from Derek's share as well so anyway that just resonated with me which Derek tried to train me let me see if I can say it in Cantonese sik den tin ha something like that when you're talking about having it in Cantonese did you know Giovanni how did you feel it went what worked about it and what doesn't work if you know what I mean that's a really good question in practice I think Laf's landed in slightly different places but not totally different so it was partially a different experience is it first because our audiences were really split mixed between Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers and it seemed to land best with people who were second generation bilingual and primarily English speakers I think people who were older sometimes I don't know if the irony is that fair to say I have a similar feeling to because it's a satirical piece I don't know enough about Cantonese but I don't know if that strain a very like its influences are things like the Colbert reports full frontal that kind of sense of that tire and I don't know if it translated as well so that's one thing that we've tried to work through in the translation process to in terms of sentence structures and how and when the jokes land in the two different languages just because how words have to be in particular orders but yeah the satirical aspect to figure that out yeah but I thought Derek did an amazing job like I mean the fact that I'd say 90% of the laughs landed in the exact same spot you'd expect them to is a real testament to the strength of his translation and to the content the content must must get must be received in a similar way I'm guessing I don't know I don't speak Cantonese I was reading the subtitle you too because you're talking about speaking Cantonese well again my Cantonese is okay it was sort of a weird thing my first language was actually Cantonese and I was apparently fluent when I was a kid and then kind of similar maybe to Bob's experience as I was growing up there's a lot of messaging of like okay speak English now we're in English spaces and I lost it so now I call I have restaurant Cantonese I do okay in like the Hong Kong cafes and stuff but outside of that it's not great but I do feel I think like I remember going back to Hong Kong and then basically having been forced to speak Cantonese and I don't know how to say it but like your thinking changes in a way and I don't know how to explain it but the way that you think or even the way that you perceive the world changes something in your brain kind of happens and as well as I learned in theater school this weird thing happens is I speak English with the muscles that you use to speak Cantonese so they had to actually eliminate and try to work on that because it was actually messing up a lot of my speech and they realized that and I had to sort of learn vocal exercises to open up Derricks you were nodding too yeah what comes to mind for me it's all in the tones it comes to Cantonese well can I, I mean like a standard example of me going to a restaurant when I was a kid the term for waiter is foge and I called him foge which is turkey so it's just a question of being to me when it comes to any language it's the tones especially Mandarin and Cantonese so you just got to be careful what you say yeah that's what I find it's all in the tones well you're a different performer in English than you are in Cantonese I think yeah I think I am I feel like I am I think I'm more in my body when I'm performing in Cantonese I think less I definitely think less when I'm performing in Cantonese because a taste of empire has so many moments of bantering and joking with the audience and I find doing that in Cantonese so much easier yeah it all comes more from yeah and I feel and I make jokes I make are very different in Cantonese and in English in Cantonese they tend to be a little more crass I guess childish I mean it kind of makes sense because it's the language that I've been speaking since I was a kid you know 16 I was still making really terrible crass jokes you were 16 I also resonate with Andrea's story about in performance class your voice teacher working with the way you speak in English well removing your voice removes I also remember I was going to say I also remember my dream switching languages from Cantonese to English and then when I was doing Tales of Empire it kind of popped in a little bit it's kind of gone again Bob while I was doing a little work on this thinking about this two separate sites called Underwater Chinatown and one of them is a storytelling site and you're involved in that can you talk a little bit about that that was last January it was a workshop done at the learning center and it was an audio so this is my first time I've ever done anything audio and I collaborated with Liz Chung and basically we decided to have an audio about dumping making in fact it should have been done here I should have brought it down today whatever but this underwater audio was quite something we got into it the ingredients talking about talking story pertaining to food and what we did with it Liz and I compared our different notes with different family functions and everything so it was really funny I was just reminiscing about this is a reminder of the Friday nights at home the kitchen table making dumplings and talking with family and that's basically what that underwater Chinatown did bring back that reminiscence of being with the family and preparing food we're going okay we're going to put that up on our website it's underwater Chinatown wordpress.com slash stories and there's also an interactive site that displays archives related to three different Chinese theaters or opera houses in Chinatown so if you just google underwater Chinatown you're going to get those things do you know anything about those opera houses those theaters? are they part of your tour? no not part of my tour I'm more culinary and cultural there was an opera house there called Hart's Opera House at one time and that was on Carroll Street I know there was another opera house on Shanghai Alley but to my knowledge that were the two three there was three opera houses well there are three that are on that site I'd just like to ask each one of you to just weigh in for a minute about if you think that there are ways for us to create more cultural space in Vancouver for Cantonese language theater oh yeah absolutely I mean that's what we're really trying very hard to do a gateway in Richmond is to create a space for not just works that are presented from overseas which we have done but also original Canadian voices like what Derek did and I think the two have to definitely be part and parcel of it bringing voices from abroad so you have that kind of international exchange but also you know supporting something that would be almost like a Chinese version of where you have people as well as having a French language theater in town we definitely have room for Cantonese Mandarin language theater in the lower mainland it would also help is to to say also include invite audience members who don't speak Cantonese to those performances and just to show that we're not only doing Cantonese shows for Cantonese people in English show for English speaking people because I don't think that's the way to go I think there's something in theater that brings people together and not to separate us into different groups so what we did with the I thought that was a helpful device to have Chinese and English subtitles I worked for gateway during last year's pacific festival I guess just to add on to that is that there is actually a real demand for Cantonese language theater I know a lot of times in the theater conversation there's an assumption that like Chinese people aren't interested in the arts and aren't interested in the theater but it's not that it's more so there isn't the art that's catered to them or not just catered but welcomes them as well so what was really beautiful about the pacific festival was seeing so many people and having like wait lists people waiting to go see art and it was so beautiful but also having those the English sur titles which really gave this message that everyone is welcome yeah I think we all learned from each other and I think that's the important issue and I really think taste of empire it comes to mind like I was I was invited to go down to San Francisco for some Chinese opera and it was at the opera at the opera hall and they actually had Chinese opera with English subtitles so just to give people non-Asian, non-Chinese the awareness of Chinese opera is just not all clang-clang-clang-clang-clang there's a meaning behind it and people can then understand it so we all learned from each other and I think that was pretty cool English subtitles well it's not like we haven't been doing opera in Italian and we don't all speak Italian exactly I'd like to open this up to the audience are there any questions from the audience so after after we had that initial conversation I kind of went away and made an early draft and then on the recommendation of PTC Heidi and Kathleen they suggested that we apply for a translation residency hosted by playwrights workshop Montréal Hall in a little place called Tato Sac in Quebec so there we spent 10 10 days just focusing on this particular piece so in the morning we would I would read a bit out loud and then Giovanni would read a bit out loud and then we would kind of discuss oh is the pace and the rhythm kind of matching are we saying the same thing here and also just I'd go line by line and maybe talk about things that weren't evident on a first read or even a second read for example certain sentence structures like something that happened at the very end of the play I would tell Derek however you translate it's really important that there's a parallel between this and this because this is a call back to that or there's a line where he says it's just a really silly thing where he says letting all the goodness of the earth and letting the bounties trickle down and I asked him trickle down is like a reference to trickle down economics so can we use the same Cantonese translation that you'd use for Milton Friedman's principle of trickle down economics just little nuances like that and I'd ask I wouldn't presume it would work but I'd say the determined Cantonese for trickle down economics work just little things like that that again aren't really evident so he really is just a way of letting him inside my brain of what I was thinking when I wrote it Alex? I think it's translated as I think it's a straight direction translation probably Dik Lau, Geng Zai but then trickle down so and then we say Her Ha Dik Lau the English one's being published in the spring of 2017 yeah, yeah, I'm sorry I shouldn't say that by talent books but yeah, you know what's funny yeah, so yeah, we should just have both sides yeah, I was talking to Anne-Marie at the opening and I said I don't know why you'll just put both of them in yes that tends to happen in my writing I yeah, when I write plays I tend to explore those darker places then when I, well so far then when I work in Cantonese but I've also been told that I don't move like a Hong Kong Chinese person anymore that I move like a Canadian what does that mean? I have no idea