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Asian Heritage Month

For Reel Asian, Asian Heritage Month provides an opportunity to reflect on our community’s cinematic history and to revisit past favourites that have made historic contributions to the Asian Canadian experience.

Think of past trips you’ve taken across Canada, around the world, or even during a walk through your home city  — chances are, you’ve come across a Chinese restaurant. Surely you’ve wondered about the stories behind the people and the food.

In the early 2000s, filmmaker Cheuk Kwan travelled the globe over the course of four years and documented stories for his beloved Chinese Restaurants series, which takes us from Turkey to Mauritius, India to Norway, Trinidad to South Africa, and many points in between. Throughout the 15 episodes, Kwan weaves together profiles of these small businesses to tell the story of migration, adventure, and an enduring spirit of the Chinese diaspora.  

Reel Asian is proud to present the complete Chinese Restaurants documentary series for the first time since its initial release nearly 20 years ago. Grouped into five programmes of three episodes each, all 15 episodes are available exclusively online throughout the month of May. Enjoy the films, and please join us for a conversation between author and filmmaker Cheuk Kwan and Toronto Star food reporter Karon Liu on May 2nd!

Enjoy this free VOD pass to Cheuk Kwan’s entire Chinese Restaurants Collection. Your pass automatically enters you for a raffle to win Cheuk Kwan’s book Have You Eaten Yet? 

Your VOD pass also includes a live-stream of the Director’s Talk with Cheuk Kwan in conversation with Karon Liu. This live 2-hr event will stream starting at 7PM ET on Monday, May 2, 2022. You can join in the chat and even ask questions remotely!

CHEUK KWAN'S CHINESE RESTAURANTS COLLECTION

Song of the Exile

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Song of the Exile tells the story of the Chinese diaspora told through its most recognizable and enduring icon – the family-run Chinese restaurant. Filmmaker Cheuk Kwan brings us into the lives of extraordinary families in Israel, South Africa and Turkey, as they share moving stories of displacement and belonging.

Kien is a Vietnamese refugee and a devout Christian who evangelizes Chinese migrant workers while running a restaurant in Haifa.  His children, meanwhile, variously negotiate their complex identities as Christian Chinese Israelis in a Jewish homeland surrounded by Arab states.

Ying started Cape Town’s first Chinese restaurant in 1947.  Today his widow Onkuen and his daughter continue his legacy.  Through them, we glimpse a South Africa struggling to address the bitter injustices and betrayals of its apartheid past.

Wang, a Chinese Muslim who established Istanbul’s oldest Chinese restaurant, fled Chinese Communists in 1949 with his family in a dramatic trek over the Himalayas, thereby earning a place in urban legend as the man who ‘walked from China’.

Together these family histories illustrate the wider story of Chinese migration, settlement and integration, and celebrate the resilience and complexity of the Chinese diaspora.  Set against events that have sparked some of the past century’s most dramatic global migrations, these stories illustrate communities whose culture and identity are held together by a kinship that is stronger than nationalism and politics.

On The Islands

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On The Islands tells story of the Chinese diaspora told through its most recognizable and enduring icon – the family-run Chinese restaurant.  Filmmaker Cheuk Kwan takes us on a tour of restaurants in Mauritius, Trinidad, and Cuba, showing us Chinese communities that have become an integral part of these sensual and seductive islands in the sun.

In the middle of the Indian Ocean, Colette, an innovative self-taught chef, serves up inventive new dishes combining Chinese, Creole and Indian flavors in her Mauritian restaurant. Colette, together with other members of the Hakka Chinese community, gives us insights into the Hakka Chinese and their conservative traditions and values.

In San Fernando, we find a rags-to-riches story of restaurant owner Maurice whose passion for quality and service has won him widespread affection and respect while members of his family dance to the infectious beat of Trinidad’s annual Carnival.

In Havana, Alejandro runs a home for Chinese elderly and supports it by operating a restaurant on the side.  Meanwhile, we go beyond the ‘Chinese Fantasy’ the Cuban government has created in Chinatown to discover a community that has now become truly Cuban.

Together, these community and personal histories illustrate the wider story of Chinese migration, settlement and integration and celebrate the resilience and complexity of the Chinese diaspora today in these interracial and multicultural island melting pots.

Three Continents

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Three Continents tells the story of the Chinese diaspora through its most recognizable and enduring icon – the family-run Chinese restaurant. Filmmaker Cheuk Kwan journeys to the ‘Big Island’ of Madagascar, inside the Arctic Circle in Norway, and the Canadian Prairies, exploring the long history of Chinese migration and settlement in three continents.

Did the Chinese come to Madagascar in the 15th century, years before the Europeans? This question is answered as we visit a restaurant run by a third-generation Chinese Malagasy and the oldest Chinese immigrant on the fourth largest island of the world.

Michael has opened one of very few Chinese restaurants inside the Arctic Circle. As he promotes his Hong Kong-style efficiency, his Chinese kitchen staff openly discusses how they came to Europe illegally to the restaurant trade.

Chinese workers came to Canada in the 19th century to build the trans-continental railroad, but by 1923, the country passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Against these odds, Jim came to Outlook, Saskatchewan as a “paper son” using a dead child’s identity.

Together, these community and personal histories illustrate the wider story of Chinese migration, settlement and integration and celebrate the resilience and complexity of the Chinese diaspora. They highlight the fluidity and highly personal nature of identity, and the human impulse to connect both with the past and with those amongst whom we find ourselves.

Latin Passions

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Latin Passions tells the story of the Chinese diaspora through its most recognizable and enduring icon – the family-run Chinese restaurant. Filmmaker Cheuk Kwan visits Latin American cities of Lima, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires encountering restaurant owners enthralled in their passion for cooking, soccer and tango.

Lima-born Luis is a medical doctor who took over a rundown restaurant in the city’s Chinatown.  The charming and outgoing doctor hosts Chinese cooking shows on TV and promotes the marriage of his ancestors’ holistic medicine and health-conscious cuisine.

Lee and his future wife swam from China to Macau, and freedom, during China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s. On the eve of the 2002 World Cup final, their son, Luis, recounts his passion for football and what it means to grow up Chinese-Brazilian.

77-year old Chiang came to Buenos Aires in the 1960’s and became the “Spring Roll King” of Argentina. While his family lives elsewhere in this planet, he lives his remaining years amidst the melancholy music of the seductive tango.

Together, these stories illustrate the wider story of Chinese migration, settlement and integration and celebrate the resilience and complexity of the Chinese diaspora. They highlight the fluidity and highly personal nature of identity, and the human impulse to find passions in life.

Beyond Frontiers

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Beyond Frontiers tells the story of the Chinese diaspora through its most recognizable and enduring icon – the family-run Chinese restaurant.  Filmmaker Cheuk Kwan travels to the cities of India and into the jungles of Brazilian Amazon and come face to face with Chinese communities who have transcended geographical, political, and social frontiers.

The Yeh brothers were born in Calcutta and suffered from the aftermath the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict.  Today, the four brothers reminisce what it was like to grow up Chinese in India as emigration decimated the once vibrant and prosperous community.

Taiwan immigrant Jack first established his restaurant thirty years ago in the Amazon city of Manaus.  While contemplating retirement, his business-savvy US-educated son, Eddy, navigates his own unique identity – Chinese in heart but Brazilian in spirit.

The brothers Nini and Baba Ling grew up in a Chinese-Indian family. As Nini contemplates his retirement from the restaurant business, Baba is forging ahead with Nanking, the re-incarnated name of a landmark restaurant his father established in 1947.

Together, these community and personal histories illustrate the wider story of Chinese migration and settlement and celebrate the resilience and complexity of the Chinese diaspora.  They highlight the fluidity and highly personal nature of identity, and the struggle of ethnic minorities to break through cultural and racial boundaries.

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