Cheuk Kwan, writer of Have You Eaten Yet? and director of Chinese Restaurants, in conversation with Karon Liu

Karon Liu
Moderator

KARON LIU is a food reporter, recipe developer and recipe tester based in Toronto. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Food Network Canada and Sharp Magazine. He previously worked at The Grid and Vice Munchies. He is currently the staff food writer at The Toronto Star as well as keeper, cleaner and guardian of the test kitchen.

Cheuk Kwan
Director and Writer

CHEUK KWAN was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, immigrating to Canada in 1976, with his engineering career also bringing him to Europe and Saudi Arabia. His international and diasporic upbringing gave him an early start in world travel—he speaks English, Japanese, French, as well as Cantonese and Mandarin. 

In 1978, Kwan co-founded The Asianadian, a progressive and influential magazine dedicated to the promotion of Asian Canadian arts, culture and politics. The following year, he helped lead the Anti-W5 Campaign to fight against the racist portrayal of Chinese Canadians on a Canadian television network. Kwan studied film production at New York University. His five films from the Chinese Restaurants series—Song of the Exile, On the Islands, Three Continents, Latin Passions, and Beyond Frontiers—bring together his personal experiences, love of food and travel, and appreciation of the Chinese diaspora culture worldwide. Kwan is based in Toronto.