(c) Copyright Steve Yip Nov 14, 2024 | Edits by Steve Yip and Gabrielle Hrung

INTRODUCTION

Shannon is a multigenerational Chinese American. Born in San Francisco, she attended Oakland Senior High School and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. Brought up in the ‘50s/’60s within a community of Chinese immigrants supporting a democratic society in China, her father was a paper son who emigrated to the United States in the 1940s; her mother’s family began their U.S. roots in Arizona. In the period of WW2 and after, her parents followed the civil war and the anti-Japanese war waging in China and were influenced by the Chinese liberation struggle toward a democratic China in the 40’s and 50’s. 

Shannon grew up in this influenced of change for a better society and became an educator with a fervent focus on bilingual education, confronting the barriers and struggles to educate all children in the United States. She is also a Chinese folk dance learner and practitioner and has dedicated her life to introducing diverse Chinese folk traditions and cultures to generations of younger people. As the program director of the dance organization, the Chinese Folk Dance Association, she helped to expose dance students to other cultural communities while promoting Chinese cultural diversity. Shannon is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco, promoting arts of all mediums. 

— Steve Yip, New York, July 25, 2024

SUMMARY

In this interview, Shannon Yip shared her experiences as a dancer, instructor, and later program director of the Chinese Folk Dance Association in the SF Bay area. This interview was held in November 2023 in Oakland, California. Shannon discussed how she first got involved with CFDA, its internal structure, and the leading figures of the organization. She also explained the symbolism and sociocultural context behind the dances she learned and taught, as well as the different demographics involved with CFDA, which includes both Chinese immigrants and American-born Chinese. Shannon’s experiences and reflections highlight the role of the performing arts and cultural heritage in diasporic communities and the challenges presented by both generational and cultural differences in passing on a tradition. This interview was done by Steve Yip, with subsequent edits by himself and Gabrielle Hrung. 

— Gabrielle Hrung, Berlin, February 15, 2025

INTERVIEW

Steve Yip We’re in Oakland, California, and this is Part Two of the interview with Shannon Yip. Please introduce yourself and what you do today. Where did you grow up, and how would you describe all the social and cultural forces that shaped you as a person?

Shannon Yip I am Shannon Yip. I am a retired educator and retired dance instructor, Chinese folk dance instructor. Retired for 12 years now.

The first 10 years of my life were in San Francisco North Beach / San Francisco Chinatown. And the rest of my days are in Oakland. West Oakland, mainly, from junior high through high school. I moved out for my college days and went to UC Berkeley, so that was four years. Then I went to Hayward to finish my master’s / administrative degree. There was a program that was being offered where you can do two things at one time: a master’s and an administrative degree.

The foundation has to do with home. Growing up, my parents had a lot of friends coming over, and they did activities, even though most of them were adults. This showed me how diverse people were. It was very family-oriented, because everybody was either Big Brother, Big Sister, Auntie, or Uncle. And then, few of them are actually Mr. and Mrs. So-And-So. But in terms of language and how close we are, you choose the title. Those are titles that were chosen for us.

Steve Yip So we’re talking about a Chinese community here?

Shannon Yip Yes. My parents, my parents’ friends, our parents’ friends. The other portion of it is moving over to West Oakland. The cultural dynamic there was so different; it was like cultural shock in two ways. One is a community that is mainly Chinese or Italian, to a community it is, that was mainly African American. Two blocks from the store to which we occupied and lived was a street full of Italians. The attitude of the Italians when they come to the store is totally different from most of the neighbors that live around the store. Neighbors around the store were of two kinds: those who actually owned their houses, and those who rent; those who watched the children very closely, and those who didn’t. One of our close friends from school; I always wondered how come he’s never always around? That’s because he has been raised by his grandmother. So these days when he’s not around, he goes back with his mom. To me, that was so different. Like what? I don’t understand that. Until I made a correlation, where my parents have a friend who’s similar, who doesn’t really live with their parents as much as they live with somebody else.

Steve Yip The person you talked about, they were African American or are they Chinese or Italian?

Shannon Yip African American. 

Steve Yip How do you learn about this? Just watching, observing? 

Shannon Yip Yeah. There’s the interactions, like Miss Mary who lived on the other corner, the kitty corner from us. She had her own house, and she would come over after grocery shopping and stuff. I remember one time, she gave MaMa pigs feet, pigs feet with black-eyed peas. So my mom would make pigs feet, the Chinese version. Even though their English wasn’t that good, it was enough to see, oh, how culturally similar we are. It’s not Chinese-Chinese — because we come from the countryside, and what my mom made was countryside food. Not Canton, not general China, but country-style food. So that bridged a friendship in the community, because Miss Mary talked about it. Then with somebody else, the same thing. One time BaBa was making 臘鴨 lap ap (preserved duck) in the store. People would come to the butcher side and go, “What do you making? What you’re making?” And he’ll explain it and they said, “Oh, that’s just like our food”. I don’t remember what exactly was made, but the idea was that they compare food and how culturally similar we are, and that’s cool. So that influenced me as a person and how I saw things because, number one, I’m not a very quiet person. Chinese female. As I went up the ranks and became a teacher, I noticed how I don’t fit into people’s the stereotype. It made a turnaround for me to see certain things. I think that was probably one of the social climate experiences that I’ve had where I figured I don’t fit into the stereotype. 

Steve Yip What was this turnaround you just referred to? 

Shannon Yip Well, in terms of understanding who you are, do I conform to the stereotype? Or do I be myself? It was the stereotype of being a female. Number one, I was too tall. I shouldn’t be too tall. I was too loud. I was too active. I don’t sit still. I don’t dress accordingly.

Steve Yip Is it the Chinese stereotype? Is that what it was?

Shannon Yip It’s the other people’s stereotype of what Chinese people should be, part one. Part two is also our parents, non-political friends. So mom had a relative and friends that live in the area. So I was always told…like I can’t remember now. 

Steve Yip These are Chinese people?

Shannon Yip Yeah, these are Chinese people, they always told me. Same thing, even when we came back to San Francisco Chinatown to visit. Same things, like you know, 唔彀斯文 m gau si man (not refined enough).

Steve Yip Oh, you’re not, you’re not refined enough. Is there any reason why you were that way?

Shannon Yip No. I happen to be this way. It’s the same reason, though. My two sisters and I, for some reason, among my brother’s friends, are known as the “Yip Sisters” because we’re a little on the active side.

Steve Yip We can get more into this. Some of the things you pointed out are very interesting, in terms of the cultural shock, but also at the same time, finding common ground. But why don’t we get to the point in which we’re doing the interview, which is the Chinese Folk Dance Association (CFDA), which you were associated with for many years. How did you get involved with it? Let’s start with that. Tell me more about it. 

Shannon Yip I think that I got involved with it because of what I’ve said; I’m too active. I’m always jumping around. So one of our parents’ friends suggested I go join the dance group. That didn’t just get me out of the house, it gave me something more constructive physically to do. To contain me or to refine me, I don’t know what reason, but it was suggested I go join the dance group. This was when we finally moved to Oakland. And it took MaMa a while to agree to it. BaBa thought it was a good idea because our aunt Lillian (YiYi) was already dancing with the Chinese Folk Dance Association. She was one of the first dancers. One of the first Chinese folk dancers at that time to perform the ribbon dancing. YiYi was in it, and I have pictures to verify that. I thought that was part of the reason why I got involved. But, the challenge was that I was the only child, even though I was in middle school. I was the only child because everybody else was adult-age, college-age, or beyond college-age. I was the only child, and they didn’t know what to do with me. Learning a certain dance style was a challenge. The classical dance style was a challenge because the stereotype of Chinese dancing has always been classical dancing. You know, long skirts, you walk baby steps, you know you have to do gentle movements. That was a challenge for me. I couldn’t, I couldn’t… Not that I couldn’t do it, but it didn’t sink in. It took me a long time to understand it, before I learned how to teach it. 

Steve Yip How old were you?

Shannon Yip Ten. Because we moved over to Oakland, about fifth grade?

Steve Yip So you got involved during the weekends.

Shannon Yip Weekends only. CFDA was only on Saturday. All day Saturday.

Steve Yip You had a multi-year relationship with the CFDA. What is CFDA and what do you know about it? How did you get more deeply involved with them? 

Shannon Yip CFDA belongs to and is associated with Mun Ching, a student club. As a student club, they have a lot of members, and they have a lot of sub-clubs or groups. There’s a drama group, a music group, and a tutorial group where they help each other study. In the drama group, there’s not really a dance, but there’s dancing and they’re singing. The most popular and the easiest group was the music and the singing. The tutorial was big, because these people were immigrants and they had to learn English to survive. My first dance experience was from a dance that Mama had taught us to perform for one of their social gatherings. I remember Jamie (Janie?) was there, I was there, Mary was there and two other girls. We learned a butterfly dance from my mother. You guys were out running around, which I was jealous of. Because you guys get to go in and out, in and out, in and out. Whereas if I tried to go in and out, in and out… I got yelled at. Part of the reason is because I was a girl. Unless I hung out with you guys.

Steve Yip “You guys” being…? 

Shannon Yip Being with my brother and his friends. Sometimes they don’t want me around, but that’s the only time I can get out. “Get out.” I’ll give you this particular story with that. One time I hung out with my brother and the guys, and I learned what a pickle is. I didn’t know what a pickle was. They bought a pickle as a snack. That’s how I wouldn’t have known and wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t hang out.

Steve Yip So this is about when you first started, it was about the late 50s, early 60s. Who was the founder, and who are the key players in driving the CFDA? Where does CFDA hold their events? Obviously, you have practice sessions. What was it like? What was the organization like from your perception? 

Shannon Yip The key players are still my parents’ friends, and a few of them who are involved with music and dance perpetuated the organization. Of all the clubs and groups that were part of Mun Ching, dance was the only one that stayed together and lasted the longest. From that, people would come and join, and it became more organized. The first few dances that were learned were learned from books. Or from black and white movies that they saw. But mainly from books. So you read a book and you follow the steps, whether or not it’s accurate. It’s the best we can do. 

The founder was Jackson Chan. When CFDA became officially formed, he was designated as the founder. They had it notarized. They had to legally document that CFDA is a nonprofit organization. Our lawyer was Dr. Gordon Lau. Him Mark Lai was involved too. Those are two names I know. The other two people I don’t know their names. I think this was ‘59. Him Mark Lai helped with the formation of CFDA. He was part of the committee or the Chinatown group that arranges when we perform for Chinatown. He was there. I don’t know in what capacity. I know he was there. This is early on, during the establishment.

When my mother was teaching us the dance, we learned it at the clubhouse. The clubhouse was located on Stockton Street in a basement. It was a good sized basement, because there was a little stage. There were two side rooms and a library. And then people get up, and there are rows of chairs, rows of six on each side, eight rows down. Eventually, when I got permission to participate in CFDA, I learned that people will go play basketball there. So the guys will play basketball either/or at Commodore Stockton, and they will go up to the Rec Center and play basketball. Another group of people will start learning dance there. It was already happening before I joined, but I know that when I went, I would meet up with YiYi, my mother’s sister and my aunt. 

Steve Yip What did you think about it?

Shannon Yip I didn’t! It was basically a chance, a chance for me to get out. I was happy to get out. I had to take the bus from West Oakland to downtown Oakland. I caught the bus to go over the bridge, got off at the East Bay terminal and walked up. The reason I knew where to walk up was because when we were living in San Francisco, I had gone to the Chinese Recreation Center before for summer camps.

Steve Yip The Chinese Rec Center on Stockton Street?

Shannon Yip It is on Mason and Washington, next to the cable car barn. 

Steve Yip The CFDA started developing different studios. Tell us about that. How many studios did you have?

Shannon Yip Three. Two studios and one main. San Francisco was our core. Oakland, one studio. Sunnyvale was the second one.

We had a large production: we performed at the opera house, and there were over a hundred people. It was like we were 1/3 of the audience, basically. That’s how many people we had on stage for the finale. Then we had a lot of people joining. I started the Oakland studio only because I wanted supplemental income, and I started this studio with the Oakland Recreation Center. So I was paid 60-40. The students will pay… let’s say $10 for class. Out of the $10 I would get 40% and Oakland Rec get 60%. 

Steve Yip To be a participant, you have to pay dues, in other words. Did the main body in San Francisco do that too? Were the other teachers also non-paid volunteers? 

Shannon Yip No. The students’ payments were the only way I could rent the place. We were in San Francisco for so long. We didn’t start paying rent or charging students into, gosh. When I started…I can’t remember. Maybe 15 years ago? It was only in the last 20 years we started charging students. Everything else before that: Volunteer. So I started this Oakland studio, and then we had more people interested coming from the South Bay. One of our teachers also lives in South Bay, so our executive directors decided “Let’s open a Sunnyvale studio.” So we have Sunnyvale studio, Oakland studio, and main core San Francisco. So these two studios feed into the San Francisco one. When I closed the Oakland one, I already took half of my students to San Francisco.

There was a transition from when we were getting money/funding from San Francisco Arts Commission and…we also got some from somewhere else. I can’t remember now.

Steve Yip But fundraising was done. I mean, you had to sustain an operation.

Shannon Yip We had to stay in operation. We had to apply for funding. So in the endowment, it is stated that we can hire professional teachers, and maybe pay the treasurer for keeping tabs and things like that. Only a couple of people were paid. Everybody else volunteered. So we had three people we actually paid. So, of the two instructors, one eventually became artistic director, and then the other one is our instructor. So that’s how paying instructors started. We never paid instructors before. Before we started hiring for instructors, we would have exchanges with visiting dance companies, and with a visiting dance company, they would teach us the dance or teach us some basic concepts. Through our artistic director, she was able to invite more renowned names: choreographers and instructors from the mainland to come visit us. 

Steve Yip Has there been a written history? When people join and get involved with CFDA, is there a written history to give people background? 

Shannon Yip Yeah. We created one when we went back to China, and I wrote one based on my understanding and approval from the executive committee. We had a board of directors, and within the board of directors, we have a separate committee. 

Steve Yip Will you share other names in the executive committee?

Shannon Yip I can’t, because I don’t know exactly who they are. All I know is that when we have meetings during our group, we all sit there and listen. Things are presented to us and we pick things and they get feedback. Now, who made the decision? Who leads? I can only say, definitely the founder, Jackson Chan, was one of them and whoever was the sub-coordinator, sub-director. Presently you know, we have an executive director, so I was only a program director. When everybody else retired and I took over the CFDA for seven years, I didn’t take up the word “Director.” I maintained my title as the program director.

Steve Yip Was there an executive director? 

Shannon Yip Yeah, there was an executive director. He retired, but nobody retired his title nor his name. So I just kept my title as program director / sub-instructor.

Performing Arts and Folk Dances

Steve Yip Continuing your involvement, what did you learn about the CFDA? What are they trying to do, and what did it represent to you? What do you think it represents to people who are organizing activities? Was CFDA a non-professional organization that discouraged having professional dancers’ involvement?

Shannon Yip My understanding is that they did it to expose, and share our culture with the community. But they’re not low-end dancers. What I learned is that people who dance are not welcome. You flaunt your hands and your legs, though it’s not polite. It’s not very refined. The culture among the Chinese at that time was that everyone aspired to be scholars. Academia and high society. You do not behave like that, you do not perform; you do not flaunt. But the contradiction is that they appreciate it because that’s part of the culture.

It has nothing to do with being professional or non-professional. It’s just a basic group of people who wanted to share their culture with the community and said that our cultures do exist, number one. Number two, it’s okay to be performing on the street. Number three is that there’s information you guys need to know about living here in this new society of ours. Because we are visitors, we are immigrants. There’s a lot of things outside this community that we have not explored. Through dance, we learn about ourselves. Through dance, we learn about what our culture is. Through dance, we also are united, because we come from different subcultures within China. There’s Toisan, there’s Hoiping, there’s Chungsan, there’s Canton. There’s different perspectives and different discussions in terms of how we should be in America. How CFDA prospered is that we became a group that promoted our culture. For people like myself, to learn what is Chinese culture, culture is associated with language. There’s certain terminology that you can learn from. How you behave. It’s like “This dance stems from the village.” I go, “What do you mean by the village?” Well, there’s farmers, there’s people who grow pigs, there are people who grow rice. When growing rice, the reason why we’re doing this motion? Because this is how we put the rice seedling into the ground. We convert the motion into a dance. People always like “Ribbon dance and fan dance!” Well, there was never really one “authentic” ribbon dance. Ribbon dance came about because people were celebrating; everybody always had some kind of handkerchief or belt tied around their waist. Then to enhance the atmosphere, they would take their belts or hangers and they wave it in the air. From waving it in the air, the motion became a structural waving, to everybody doing at the same time. Eventually, a dance was formed to represent this celebration of ribbons. 

Steve Yip Okay, what you’re describing is that the CFDA was actually promoting folk dancing as opposed to high end/high culture dancing. When you say “Chinese,” you already made an inference that Chinese wasn’t just one homogenous culture. So this is something that’s more among the culture, among the common folk. Is that correct? 

Shannon Yip The folk dance? It would be among common folks. There’s a difference between folk dancing versus classical dancing. Classical dancing is influenced by the courts. We did eventually learn classical dancing, because that’s also part of our culture. We did two different performances where we made a comparison between countryside dances and palace dances. The title was something like “From palaces to the country” or “From countryside to the palace.”

Steve Yip When you say folk, are you talking about different minority groups? When you talk about “the country,” you’re talking about agrarian society. That’s where folk dance comes from. And when you say “court,” you’re talking about the monarchy? Who is providing that kind of direction? Were you sort of inculcated/educated/informed about the character of the culture you are sharing? Were the people involved actually taught this? How was this knowledge shared?

Shannon Yip “Folk” refers to minority groups and countryside people. Everyday people. For example, there’s Hoi Nan Island. They use bamboo, similar to the Filipinos, in terms of clapping it on the ground and putting it together. And because? That’s because the island had a lot of bamboo. Okay, now Tibetan style. And why are they always hunched over? Because a lot of them are mountain people. A lot of them are mountain people, not all of them are mountain people, but a lot of them are. When they carry things up the hill, they’re hunched over, and from that hunched over, the dance style emerges. Mongolians because they live in a tent and it’s low, most of them are low. They’re more two dimensional.

“Court” refers to the palaces, the kings, when people come to be entertained. They are confined in terms of what they can do and confined in terms of space. The refinement we find in the attire that they wear, this also distributed in terms of what the movement is. To us, to me, that’s court dancing, we were able to distinguish that.

We didn’t provide direction, they didn’t. It was not a clear vision. It was a roundabout way when we’re trying to come up with performances. It was an idea of Shangri-La, to give you an example. Shangri-La. The discussions were mainly in Chinese, so I didn’t catch everything. But I caught it because the product came out the way it did. I was able to figure it out.

Understanding the Mission of the CFDA

Steve Yip So it was left to an individual to actually come up with an understanding of what the goals and the mission of the CFDA was about?

Shannon Yip No.

Steve Yip Was the mission of the CFDA overtly explained to you? Or you just figured it out on your own?

Shannon Yip On my own I figured it out. Because the basic mission of the CFDA is to promote Chinese culture through dance. With leadership and understanding of the past and history and how it affects our lives today. Even though that’s a very generic mission, the circumstances that we face today still lead to that general mission, where we’re still providing diversity in terms of what our culture is like.

Eventually it was explained, through the forewords in our programs. One example is “From the countryside to the palace.” I forgot the actual name of it, but there was a description of why that is the theme of the program. There was another one where we did: “Mulan Returns.” We did the Women Warrior dance, then we explained why it’s Women Warriors. We have a discussion among ourselves, and the veterans and immigrants who have a better understanding of our history, share their knowledge with the rest of us. For Woman Warrior, for example, we have a dance that is more militaristic for females. I’ve learned that during the Civil War, one of the civil wars, there was the Dagger Society that China had made. That concept came from a real thing. There was that society of people. There’s another group of people who were female militants who wore red scarves. They were also not only rebels, but also protectors of the land or the countryside. But they are real people who existed. I learned it only as a dance. All these women warriors existed back in those days, before Mulan came around. So, we said “Okay, let’s do Women Warriors.”

Steve Yip Was this traditional? This whole story about Mulan Returns, about women warriors? I’m trying to see what connection they had to the rise of the People’s Republic of China. Was there any relationship in terms of how they saw developing the CFDA? 

Shannon Yip No, not at all.

Steve Yip Did the participants, especially the younger people today actually learn about this? Not just learning the dances but what was behind these dances? Was there a formal attempt to actually teach people the cultural backgrounds of the dances?

Shannon Yip We didn’t do that until later on, because a lot of the immigrants from Hong Kong and directly from China already knew the background. Because that’s part of their history, and they learned it as they were growing up. But for us American-born Chinese, in our history books we don’t learn and understand those kinds of things. So we don’t know why or where these dances come from. We would ask questions like “Why do you have to do that?” And the immigrants would explain it to us, like “Oh, they do that because of this. They do that because of this.”

We had a parent who is very history-oriented, and especially Chinese history-oriented. There was a period of maybe five years where we had workshop sessions. We stopped dancing for a half an hour, and she would give us a history lesson. And then, especially when I teach, I would teach the kids “Okay, you’re learning Tibetan dance.” I ask them, “What’s Tibet?” and they have no clue. I said, “Well. So we have to explain what is Tibetan.” And I need to insert something very interesting in order to relate it to San Francisco, because I did the same thing with a recent group, maybe four years ago? I asked them, “Okay, there’s the minority and there’s the majority. Who are the majority of people in your school?” They said, “We are.” I go, “What do you mean?” “All Chinese. The whole school is all Chinese.” I go, “Well then, who’s the minority?” “Well, we have about, I have two blacks in my classroom. I have maybe, you know, four Spanish-speaking students and three whites in my classroom.” I go, “So it was like, Oh, how it was in San Francisco, majority Chinese. So I said “Okay, then you’re the majority. They’re the minority, okay? So Chinese people in China are the majority. So Tibetans are the minority.” And they go “Oh.” That’s how they understand these ethnic groups and why they call them minorities. We only have that for a period of time, and then I think one of our instructors caught on. Because his English is better and he caught on, he would do the same thing before he started teaching the dance. He would explain the background to these kids.

Steve Yip So it wasn’t a conscious decision by the leadership to do this kind of teaching?

Shannon Yip It wasn’t formally done. Only for a short period of time. Because that’s when we started the educational leadership program. Actually I started that program.

Steve Yip What got you to do that? 

Shannon Yip Because of what I learned and how I did not see people catching on. I said, “Okay, homework: I want you to find out about this.” The parents would ask me, “Well, how are they supposed to find out?” “Well, they can’t go to the library?” “You know, they don’t have time to go to the library just to look up this information.” And I go, “You. They can ask you.” That became an aha-moment for our parents, that they have so much knowledge of our culture but they don’t know how to share it with their children. With the educational leadership program, I made it so the students asked their parents about it. 

The leadership part of it is where you transition. You always find somebody in this group of dancers who shows more leadership, there’s strength in the organization. Their strength is that they can help reveal the dance, because their memory is good. So I would designate different students to be in charge of different things: “You’re in charge of a costume for this group. You’re in charge of the music. You’re in charge of the makeup.” So they have to be in a leadership position, and then as someone in a leadership position, you have to know the background of the dance that you’re learning. Then you need to know what information you need to gather.

Steve Yip There was a pretty intricate organization developed within the CFDA. You have different departments basically. And department heads.

Shannon Yip Yeah, we did. It kind of slowly rolled into that, more and more. We have somebody in charge of the parent group too, which is getting the parents involved. Parents can be involved with costume-mending. Or in charge of a newsletter, we started a newsletter. They can help backstage. They can help with tickets and promotion. So there’s little things that the parents could get involved with.

Steve Yip Were the parents formally trained in that? Were there workshops? 

Shannon Yip Not as much formal training as…”You want to volunteer and help? Okay, here, can you do this?” “Can you do this?” “Sure.” And they have a question and they ask you, and then after they do it a couple of times, “Can you now tell these other parents what to do?” That’s how a transition where we’re putting a lot of pressure on them to be in charge. They end up being in charge. Some of them became dance moms or dance dads, because they knew what should be done. So they will be in charge and say “Okay, we need to do this.” Go for it.

We have some kindergarten dance moms and dads, then we have some high school dance moms and dads. Some dads and moms would be in charge of transportation, because we have to transport costumes and children.

Steve Yip Did you develop a syllabus for the educational leadership program? How’d you do it? 

Shannon Yip No, I didn’t. I was thinking more like my classroom. In my classroom, I will have a monitor for this, a monitor for that, monitor for that. Being a program director, I had a monitor for this, a monitor for that, monitor this. And I just extended it where, “Can you two go help Amy over there because she’s gonna be charged with that. That’s a lot of work for her. So she’ll need help. Can you guys go?” And then we have a discussion afterwards. “How did it go? You know, how would you change it?” And then eventually, let them take over. Before I retired, for about seven years, I ran the CFDA. I didn’t really have to do that much, because all that dancer and parents knew what to do when it came to performances.

I had meetings. At the end of each class, I will meet with the whole group, and I would report and I had parents come and listen in, because some of the kids don’t report to the parents. Some parents don’t really talk to the kids. So I had explained to the kids, “Now, what are you gonna tell your mom? What are you gonna tell your dad?” Then I look at the mom and I said, “You’re gonna check on them. Make sure if he tells…” I teach the parents how to communicate to their children. Because they don’t know what to say. Because I would hear complaints: 佢冇講我聽 [keui mo gong ngo ten]). “She didn’t tell me this” or “He didn’t tell me that.” “Mom didn’t say anything to me.” That kind of conversation. So when I have meetings with my dancers, I make sure the parents understood and checked in. For those who have/are weaker parents, when I don’t see the parents, I make sure: “What are you going to tell your mom?” Yeah, and you have their best friend. “You gotta make sure…” And it helped out.

Steve Yip So you have people who are primarily dancers who face the public, but also you have to have a back office infrastructure, right?

Shannon Yip Yeah.

Steve Yip  What kind of people got involved? How did CFDA grow?

Shannon Yip It grew from two ends. One end is that people really understand that promotion of Chinese culture is necessary, because the immigrant population is growing. Within the immigrant population, their children are American-born, and they want their children to understand the culture. Some people are more supportive of a folk dancing organization or more supportive of a musical instrument organization. Even with the drama group, the Chinese opera, people were more supportive of that. Because as their American-born children grew, those immigrant parents found more of a need…not a need, but more validation to their own culture.

Stereotyping and the Validation of Chinese Culture

Steve Yip Why did they need validation? 

Shannon Yip Because I think at that time as I was growing up, during the early 60s, people were telling us what our Chinese culture should be. Once, the San Francisco Arts Commission came to visit us, and our CFDA liaison person wasn’t there. One of our other CFDA leaders came in and met the representative from the Arts Commission, but she didn’t want to talk to this other female CFDA leader. She wanted to talk to a particular CFDA representative because she liked the way that woman looked and acted, because it’s more Chinese. The person who will represent culture? The way the other CFDA representative dressed was not pleasant to the Arts Commission representative. It’s not what a Chinese woman is supposed to look like.

Shannon Yip She says, you know, “Where’s So-And-So? You know, she’s the Chinese person.” I go, “What do you mean, she’s the Chinese person?” 

Steve Yip The Chinese person. How did this CFDA representative look? Did the visit from the Arts Commission come through?

Shannon Yip Well, basically very country-like. She had her pigtails on. Her top didn’t match her bottom, like different textures and stuff.

It came, it came through. But the Arts Commission made another visit, because our initial CFDA liaison finally showed up.

Steve Yip How did you know that the Arts Commission person couldn’t relate to that individual? 

Shannon Yip Because I understood more English than the rest of the group, and I heard what that person said. I couldn’t do anything about it because I was too young. I was in high school. I didn’t know how to say anything, and then if I did say something, I would have been reprimanded. Don’t make waves. 

Steve Yip Who would’ve reprimanded you?

Shannon Yip The founder would have reprimanded me, the leader would have reprimanded me. And the people who do folk dance, who don’t want to make waves.

Steve Yip There’s two ways to look at growth. One is you have to grow in terms of participants in the dance group: where did that pool of people come from? It seems obvious to me, they came from other immigrant families. Another way: were there any college students involved with it? Then another part of growth would be: how did you grow into the greater community, and not just the Chinese community? 

Shannon Yip There were a lot more college students willing to join us because of China, and the US-China relationship had a great impact on people wanting to support the CFDA. Because of that, we were torn between getting involved politically or non-politically, because a lot of stuff we did was a reflection of China. Some people saw us as a reflection of China because a lot of our dances kind of looked like something they saw from China. Which is true, because that is our best resource in terms of learning what Chinese dance was from China. We didn’t get too much from Taiwan. We did in the early years, we did learn some dances from Taiwan. But our best resources happened to be from China, and we are a resources group. So there are a lot of college-aged young people who were also involved with us, because of the culture, something that they feel validated. 

Chinese international students joined us because of the US-China friendship. All of a sudden, a lot more colleges were doing cultural performances, Lunar New Year performances. So they felt validated seeing the CFDA doing this openly, that they’ve reached out: either join us or have us perform for them. Stanford is one of the schools that had a large number of Chinese immigrants, and they join. Some of them join art or music groups. Some join the instruments group. Singing, instruments, and some dance. UC Berkeley had some students also join us as well. And a couple of them came because that’s where the girls are, so the men join us because that’s where the girls are.

Steve Yip [laughs] So a lot of these Chinese international students, not all of them stayed in the U.S. as immigrants or maybe later on they became immigrants? But the folk dance group became a magnet for them. It sounds like this happened during this period of time, circa 1971-72, during the relaxing of restrictions and trade and openness with China. Basically, after Nixon visited China, things changed a lot. What about Taiwan?

Shannon Yip I don’t know if it was before or after. All I know is that this was happening, and with the US-China relationship, people’s hearts still belong to the motherland. Whether that motherland is the National China, Communist China, China-China, Hong Kong-China, they didn’t care. That’s where their homeland is. Their family, whether they migrated from Hong Kong, parts of Canton, or other parts of China, felt united because there was something in common. Taiwan, we welcome as well, but there are collisions.

Steve Yip Right, I mean, that is a time where there was that schism. You know, when people tried to figure out whether their so-called allegiance was aligned. You saw that movie Chan Is Missing, where this guy was torn between what was going on between Mainland China and Taiwan. But did you have people from Taiwan who got interested in CFDA? Did CFDA have opinions about the political divide between mainland and Taiwan?

Shannon Yip We did, we did. I think we did more so than I know. And the reason I say that is because I was ignorant of what’s going on. And two, is because a lot of stuff was done in Chinese and the language was over my head, so I didn’t catch on. But I did meet people and… because I had to go, I have to go. I was babysat. Basically, I had to go to dinner with him before I picked up or got sent home. So they probably weren’t, I don’t know. All I know, later on, we did, because we have one dancer who was actually a dancer from Taiwan, who joined us for many years and she’s a great dancer, so we didn’t care. You want to dance with us? We didn’t care, she didn’t care. We were just dancing.

There was an influx of American-born people joining the group at the end of my college days. ’74-75. Yeah. Mid-70s, late 70s and 80s, we had more American-born joining the group.

Steve Yip How do they hear about the CFDA? The CFDA never had a recruitment drive, or…?

Shannon Yip Parents, aunts. A friend. l have one friend whose cousin said “Oh, you know, you like dancing? Join them.” People just brought their friends over. By word of mouth or after seeing our performances. They would ask “Who? How can I join? Where you guys practice at?” We let them know, and they come and visit.

Steve Yip You gave me a sense of how leadership was provided or was exercised in the group. How would you describe the dynamics in general? Later on, you got more involved and eventually you became Director of the CFDA, correct?

Shannon Yip When Jackson tried to make me the new director, he referred to me as a director to the Chinese Chapter Consulate, or Chinatown Chamber of Commerce type of thing. And then they all looked at me because I’m American-born. They just looked at me. “Like for real?” That was the reaction. Number one was mainly, I was not just female, I was American-born, so how would I know so much about folk dance?

Steve Yip It sounded like they were amazed by it, or do you think they were disturbed by it?

Shannon Yip They weren’t disturbed, but I think they were shocked because…I think they eventually learned that things move forward. Because my line to them was like: “Your children born here? Are your grandchildren born here?” And if the answer was yes, well…don’t you think they should learn these things too? That gives them a different outlook, like, “Oh, yeah, that’s true.” You’re moving back to China? You’re raising your grandchildren here [in the U.S.] or are you raising your grandchildren over there [in China]? 

There’s a variation in dynamics. One is, I come from a very American-born perspective. A lot of immigrants see that. Whether or not they agree with me is – different thing. So I have a group of immigrants who say: yes, because of society and the way it is, how I’m doing is the most effective, because I can reach their children most effectively. Right? Whereas the immigrants who want to do what they think is more traditional is that the leader has to be somebody with a title and they have to be professionally trained. So I was accused of destroying the dance group, because I was not professionally trained.

Steve Yip Professionally trained in what?

Shannon Yip

In Chinese folk dancing. They didn’t buy into what I was doing. And if they did buy in, they wouldn’t recognize it, because I’m not professionally trained. So I was accused of, “Oh, I can do better if you let me back in. You pay me this much, I can do better.” Or they said “Oh, I should have trained you more. I should provide you with more training.” Provide me more training so you can do better [teaching the kids]. Circumstances are as they are, I did the best I can with the knowledge I’ve learned, the skills I have acquired. And my dancers actually can teach right now. I have two dancers who are substitutes. If I can’t make it, they teach for me. The class continues, whereas with traditionalists, they can’t do that. If they’re sick or something like that, they cancel class. They don’t know how to allow the kids to prosper. But eventually we have to, because it’s going to be their world. The kids can’t be all the way the traditionalists used to be or the way they learned, it is the same. Because the environment has already changed, circumstances have already changed. So the traditionalists try to force what they see is the right approach. It’s going to be successful only for a very short time. It’s going to fall apart. I mean, it’s the same as our parents. Our parents will sometimes force a teaching because they were raised a certain way. They adapted to survival mode, but they always try to talk to us the way they were raised. And that becomes a conflict, because our world is now more westernized. Americanized. As well as Chinese, culturally. So we have a dynamic of three different circumstances.

Steve Yip The three circumstances: Western, Americanized, and Chinese?

Shannon Yip Yeah. Because BaBa, my dad said something to me a long time ago. I had an argument with him in terms of what he wants to teach us and how he contradicts himself. We talked about contradictions and stuff. It’s like the phrase, you know. “You walk the walk and talk the talk,” right? “You’re not walking the walk! You’re telling us one thing, but you’re not doing it.” He had a real profound response: he says that this was the way he was raised, and he can’t get out of it. However, he has a vision for us, and that’s what he’s sharing with us. So he’s more lenient in terms of being traditionalist, because he wants us to grow to be more global and be able to adapt to a more different society than he can. He has a hard time changing. Same thing with my mother-in-law, she said something similar. It’s like, society changed. It’s not trendy anymore. So you don’t need to do certain things. To me, that’s pretty profound. I took that to heart, because a lot of things that we’re doing are for your future grandchildren.

Steve Yip This would be the very last question: is the Chinese Folk Dance Association still operating? Does it still have programming?

Shannon Yip It is operating. But I had a hard time. The board and the director had a hard time converting it into a class of just learning Chinese dance. I gave them an example, how people would take ballet class. Or they take jazz class, or they take piano lessons. They don’t take piano lessons because they want to be professional pianists. They take it because it’s good for dexterity, it’s good for the spine building. They take ballet classes, because it’s good for you physically. And some people like it. Some people do become professionals. Some people open their own studio after that. But we don’t have to become the professional dance company. There’s no reason for us to strive for that. There was an argument within us in terms of understanding which direction CFDA should go. After I took over seven years, I ran it like an educational program. I run it like my own classroom, and the content is dance. This current dance studio doesn’t run the way I run my class. So that was the argument and that was the conflict. Right now CFDA is providing exposure to what Chinese culture and dance is. Through the third generation now, meaning that our students are taking over. So they’re running it like basically a dance class. CFDA has programming. But it doesn’t reach toward a major dance production like we did before.

Steve Yip So CFDA has, sort of, downscaled its vision maybe? How big is CFDA now?

Shannon Yip I don’t know if I’ll say downscale and vision as much as resources and strategies. In terms of the resource, we’re limited in our resources now. We’re depending on our previous students to run it. Right now, we’re lucky and very, very… more than happy that our dance students are taking over. That means we did something successful and we were able to pass it down. How they run it, how they see it being run? We have to leave it in their hands. The only difference is: do they understand what culture is? That part we still need to guide them. Because like, even the fan dance, there’s a fan dance, there’s 山東 saandung style of using the fan, there’s maybe a Hong Kong style using a fan. There’s different ways of using fans. They’re not all the same. Now, how many of these dancers who are now teaching really understand that? I don’t know. I could say out of three that are teaching, two of them. They ask that question.

We have an adult group now who does dance routines. Okay, 講組舞 gong zou mou?. What they call gong zou mou. Basically, dance routines that we used to use as practices, to understand the style of the dance we’re going to learn. So it’s fine. One of our dancers, one of our first dancers, first “professionals”-looking dancers is teaching the adults, and we have 2-3 students. One is from the earlier stage, one from the middle part of CFDA, and one from the recent stage who is teaching right now. So that’s a good variety, a range of students who have come back.

Steve Yip Okay, so the CFDA still continues today. But it’s sort of diminished in terms of resources, but it’s still operating. But there’s not a whole big production.

Shannon Yip We can’t help it with the production. Mainly because our dancers are not of quality to put on the large mass production. There may be a handful of dancers who can actually dance and challenge some of the professionals because they’ve learned to dance that well. They can join a professional group if they choose to. But a whole dance production would be too much. A handful of good dancers, and the rest of them are mediocre dancers. So a lot of it is like…the last performance we had was more of a student recital. 

Steve Yip Okay, that’s good. So CFDA continues to be a volunteer-driven, non-professional group of people who want to share and preserve Chinese folk histories, particularly from everyday people.

Shannon Yip Everyday people, through dance. 

Steve Yip Through dance, and also ethnic minorities.

Shannon Yip Through dance.
Steve Yip Through dance. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for the interview.