Why it's time to re-examine Vancouver's Fire Dragon Festival
A story of cultural appropriation, ancestral trauma, and Hakka resilience
The annual Fire Dragon Festival is happening this Saturday, Sept 14.
Though it was revived for community celebration and unity in Chinatown, our friends at Kirin Rising, a youth-led Hakka kirin dance troupe, have asked us to share this message so that we can all re-examine the Hakka-originated Fire Dragon Festival from a new lens.
Here’s what they have to say:
Kirin Rising will be at the Fire Dragon Festival as the first Hakka contingent this year with a kirin dance 舞麒麟 workshop and performance at the parade. Here’s why this is significant:
The Hakka 客家 ("guest family") is a sub-ethnic Han Chinese group with distinct language and culture despite histories of displacement and persecution. Our ancestors faced severe oppression and genocidal violence during the Qing dynasty and under British imperialism, particularly from the Cantonese in the Sze Yup 四邑 region of Guangdong, where many in Vancouver’s Chinatown trace their roots.
The Fire Dragon Festival 火龍節, created by Hakka people over a century ago in the Hong Kong villages of Pok Fu Lam 薄扶林 and Tai Hang 大坑, is believed to have originated to ward off plague after a storm. While today it is a cultural celebration, the practice was borne from a story of trauma and devastation.
In the 1970s, young Chinese Canadians with predominantly Sze Yup Cantonese ancestry introduced the festival to Vancouver, adopting it from Hong Kong’s Hakka people to forge an "Asian Canadian" identity during the rise of "Asian American" identity in the US.
It’s important to note that the term "Asian American" emerged from radical student protests at Berkeley in the 60s to 70s, aiming to build political solidarity among diverse Asian backgrounds. This movement led to ethnic studies programs and a push for racial justice.
In 2021, the City of Vancouver’s Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group, created as redress for historical discrimination towards Chinese in Vancouver, revived the festival to unite the community. This year marks the first active inclusion of Hakka people in the Fire Dragon Festival, where we’ll showcase the Hakka kirin dance as Kirin Rising.
Given this context, the adaptations of the Fire Dragon Festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown invite reflection on the complexities of cultural identity, representation, and appropriation. As Chinatown faces gentrification and cultural erasure, and in light of ongoing genocides, it is crucial for our communities to build solidarity and critically examine erasure and injustice within ourselves. Recognizing these complexities helps us move forward together.For further insight, we encourage reading about the history of the Hakka people 客家人 and the Punti-Hakka War 土客械鬥, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Hakka people. We also encourage further exploration of the radical Asian American activism in the 60s and 70s, the Asian American Political Alliance, and the Third World Liberation Front with Black, Latino, Filipino and Asian American coalitions.
Kirin Rising will be hosting a free kirin (Chinese unicorn) workshop from 11am-1pm at the Fire Dragon Festival on Saturday, Sept 14 at the Chinatown Plaza Mall.
They will also be opening the main Fire Dragon Festival parade with a kirin dance and blessing in Hakka at 7pm on Carrall St in Chinatown.
For more information about the Fire Dragon Festival, visit www.firedragonfestival.com