Tue, Nov 14, 2023 4:09PM • 1:18:39
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dance, chinese, dancers, learned, group, china, culture, students, parents, terms, teach, involved, folk dance, performances, cfda, taiwan, immigrants, chinese culture, charge, association
SPEAKERS
Shannon Yip, Steve Yip
Steve Yip 00:00
November 14. It is 1:09pm. We’re in Oakland, California, and this is Part Two: Interview with Shannon. Yep. Okay. So Shannon, why don’t you just start by… you know, well, be relaxed. Talk like you usually do. Please introduce yourself and what you do today.
Shannon Yip 00:24
My name is… I am Shannon Yip. I am retired. Educator. Retired dance instructor, Chinese folk dance instructor. Retired for…what? 12 years now.
Steve Yip 00:49
Oh, where did you grow up?
Shannon Yip 00:51
I grew up…The first 10 years of my life was 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 through my college days, went to UC Berkeley. That was four years. Then went to Hayward to finish my master and… and master / administrative degree
Steve Yip 01:29
You went to Hayward? I didn’t know that.
Shannon Yip 01:31
Yeah, I went to Hayward to finish my master’s. There was a program that was being offered, you can do two things at one time: a master and an administrative degree.
Steve Yip 01:42
Okay, how would you describe all the social and cultural forces that shaped you as a person?
Shannon Yip 01:52
Social and cultural forces?
01:55
Steve Yip
Or influences, you know.
Shannon Yip 01:56
The foundation to me, I think, has to do with home. Growing up, where my parents had a lot of friends coming over, doing activities they had, even though most of them were adults, showed me how diverse people were.
Steve Yip
Diverse.
Shannon Yip
Yeah, because 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.
02:48
Steve Yip
So we’re talking about a Chinese community here.
Shannon Yip 02:51
Yes. My parents, my parents’ friends, our parents’ friends. The other portion of it is… I have to think about this. 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 of African Americans. Two blocks from the store to which we occupied and lived was a street full of Italians. And the attitude of the Italians when they come to the store is totally different from most of the neighbors that live around the store. And neighbors around the store were basically two kinds: those who actually owned their houses, and those who rent; those who watched the children very closely, and those who don’t. One of our close friends from school; I always wonder how come he’s never always around? That’s because he has been raised by his grandmother. So these days, he’s not around, he’s goes back with his mom. And that, to me, 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: Eileen.
Steve Yip 04:33
The person you talked about was a African American or are they Chinese or Italian?
Shannon Yip
African American.
Steve Yip
I see. Okay, so that actually made some impression on you.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
How do you learn about this? Just watching, observing?
Shannon Yip 04:49
Yeah. Yeah. And then there’s the interactions, like Miss Mary who lived on the other corner, kitty corner from us, had her own house, and she would come over, you know, grocery shopping and stuff. And 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.
Steve Yip
[laughs]
Shannon Yip
Right? And even though their English wasn’t that well, it was enough to see, oh, how culturally similar we are. And then it’s not Chinese-Chinese as much as, because we come from the countryside, and what my mom made was countryside food. Not Canton, not general China, but basically country-style. So that kind of bridged a friendship, you know, in the community, because yeah, Miss Mary talked about it. And then somebody else, the same thing. I forgot who else but there’s one time that Baba was making 臘鴨 lap ap in the store.
Steve Yip
Preserved duck?
Shannon Yip
Yeah. And people will 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 (noises)”. I don’t remember confidently what exactly was made, but the idea was that they compare food and how culturally similar, in terms of the strategy, oh, that’s kind of cool.
Steve Yip
That’s interesting.
Shannon Yip
So that influenced me as a person and how I saw things because, number one, I’m not a very quiet person. Quiet. Chinese female. Regarding cues as I was, as I went up the ranks and teaching and being a teacher, how I don’t fit to people’s stereotype, don’t fit into the stereotype. Right? And so, 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 07:06
What was this turnaround you just referred to?
Shannon Yip 07:08
Well, in terms of understanding who you are, do I conform to be the stereotype? Or do I be myself?
Steve Yip 07:18
What is that stereotype?
Shannon Yip 07:20
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 07:36
Is it the Chinese stereotype? Is that what it was?
Shannon Yip 07:39
It’s the other people’s stereotype of what Chinese people should be, number one, part one.
Steve Yip
Oh, I see.
Shannon Yip
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.
Steve Yip
They lived in…what? West Oakland?
Shannon Yip
No, this is when before we moved to San Francisco.
Steve Yip
Oh, this is North Beach.
Shannon Yip
Yeah. Same, same thing, even when we came back to San Francisco, to Chinatown to visit. Same things, like you know, 唔彀斯文 m gau si man (not refined enough).
Steve Yip 08:24
Oh, you’re not, you’re not refined enough.
Shannon Yip
No.
Steve Yip
I see. (laughs) That’s interesting. So is there any reason why you were that way?
08:35
Shannon Yip
No.
Steve Yip 08:36
No, just happen to be that way.
Shannon Yip 08:38
I happen to be this way.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
It’s the same reason, though. That my two sisters and I, for some reason, among my brother’s friend, are known as the “Yip Sisters” because we’re a little on the active side.
Steve Yip 08:54
Okay. We can get more into this. You know, we’re not living in West Oakland. Some of that interesting…Some of the things you pointed out is very interesting, in terms of the cultural shock, but also 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, which you were associated with for many years. So how did you get involved with it? Let’s start with that. Tell me more about it.
Shannon Yip 09:31
I think that involved with it because of what I’ve similar said, I don’t… I’m too active. I’m always jumping around. So one of our parents’ friends suggested I go join dance group. And that getting me out of… not just getting me out of the house, to give me something more constructive physically to do. So that was to contain me or refine me, I don’t know what reason, but it was suggested I go join dance group.
10:00
Steve Yip
Was this when you’re still in San Francisco?
Shannon Yip
No, this is when we finally moved to Oakland.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip 10:05
And it took Mama a while to agree to it.
Steve Yip
Really?
Shannon Yip
Yeah. Baba thought it was a good idea. Because our aunt, our aunt Lillian. Yiyi was already dancing with Chinese Folk Dance Association.
Steve Yip
Was she? Damn, I didn’t know that.
Shannon Yip
Yeah. Yeah. She was one of the first dancers. One of the first dancers, the 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, how 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. And so I was the only child. And even though they didn’t know what really to do with me, and I can tell you using a sample that learning a certain dance style was a challenge. The classical dance style was a challenge, because the stereotype of Chinese dancing was always been classified. I mean, classical dancing. You know, long skirt, you walk baby steps, you know you have to [do] gentle movement. That was a challenge for me. I couldn’t, I couldn’t… Not that I couldn’t do it, it didn’t sink in. Took me a long time to understand it. Before I learned how to teach it.
Steve Yip
How old were you?
Shannon Yip
When I started? Ten. Eight.
Steve Yip
Really?
Shannon Yip
I think 8-10. Eight or ten or eight…no ten. Because we moved over to Oakland, about fifth grade? Yeah.
Steve Yip
So that was basically…you got involved during the weekends.
Shannon Yip
Weekends only. Chinese Folk Dance Association was only Saturday. All day Saturday.
Steve Yip 12:07
But you had a multi-year relationship with Chinese Folk Dance Association, so tell us what it is and what you know about it. How did you get more deeply involved with them?
Shannon Yip 12:23
Well actually, my first dance was the one my…our mother taught me, taught us. Because the organization that they belong to and they associated with, Mun Ching, was a student club. As a student club, they have a lot of members, and they have a lot of sub-clubs? Groups? Type of thing. So there’s a drama group. I know for sure there’s a music group. There’s a tutorial group where they help each other study. Drama…there’s no… there’s not really a dance, but there’s dancing and they’re singing. So the [most] popular, I think, the easiest group was the music and the singing. The tutorial was big, because these people, they were immigrants and they have to learn English to survive. So those were a big thing. That part I do remember. So my first dance was from a dance that Mama had taught us to perform for one of their social gatherings. And then who was in it? I remember Janie was there, I was there, Mary was there and two other more girls. I can’t remember who they are. But we learned a butterfly dance from my mother.
Steve Yip 13:41
That was interesting. I had no idea.
Shannon Yip 13:45
You guys were out running around, which partly was… 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. And part of the reason is because I was a girl.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
Unless I hung out with you guys.
Steve Yip 14:08
You guys being…?
Shannon Yip 14:10
Being with my brother and his friends.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
And my brother and his friends sometimes don’t want me around. Like, “Why you…?” But that’s the only time I can get out. “Get out.” Give you this particular story with that. One time I hung out with my brother and the guys, 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…I wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t hang out.
Steve Yip 14:44
So this is about when you first started. It was about the late 50s, early 60s.
Shannon Yip 14:49
Yeah, I would say so.
Steve Yip 14:51
Where do they hold their events or where did they…? Obviously, you have practice sessions. What was it like? What was the organization like, you know, from your perception? And then later on, as you got more involved, because eventually you became Director of the Chinese Folk Dance Association, is that correct?
Shannon Yip 15:16
Mm…It started…Okay, when my mother was teaching us the dance, we learned it at the clubhouse. Clubhouse was located on Stockton Street in a basement. And it was a good sized basement, because there was a little stage. There was two side rooms, and there’s a library. And then people get up, and there are rows of chairs, rows of like six on each side. Eight rows down…so that’s quite a bit chairs, 50 chairs at least, right? And then 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. And 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.
Steve Yip 16:42
So instead of using these personal names, can you describe these individuals, so you know…
Shannon Yip 16:48
Yiyi is my aunt. My aunt, my mother’s sister.
Steve Yip 16:55
What did you think about it, in terms of this…
Shannon Yip 17:00
I didn’t! It was basically a chance. A chance for me to get out. I was happy to get out. So I had to take the bus from West Oakland to downtown Oakland. Catch the bus to go over the bridge, got off at the East Bay terminal and walked up. And the reason I knew where to walk up [was] because when we were living in San Francisco, I had gone to the Chinese recreations before, for summer camps.
Steve Yip 17:29
So there’s the Chinese Rec Center, which was—what, on Stockton Street?
Shannon Yip 17:34
It is on Mason and um…
Steve Yip
Oh, Mason.
Shannon Yip
Mason and… what’s above Powell? Washington. No. Yeah, Mason and Washington, next to the cable car barn.
Steve Yip 17:54
Okay, that’s pretty far up. So as you got, or at least continuing your involvement, what did you learn about? What exactly was the Chinese Folk Dance Association? What are they trying to do? What did it represent to you? What do you think it represents to people who are organizing activities?
Shannon Yip 18:12
My understanding is that they did it to expose, to share our culture with community. But they’re not just to be as low, low-end dancers. Because what I learned is that people who dance are not welcome. Because you flaunt your hands and your legs, though it’s not polite. It’s not. It’s not very refined. The culture among Chinese at that time was everyone aspire to be scholars.
Steve Yip
Oh, I see.
Shannon Yip
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.
Steve Yip 19:03
So in other words, Chinese Folk Dance Association was more a non-professional organization? A group, and they discourage having professional dancers being involved?
Shannon Yip 19:16
No.
Steve Yip
What was it?
Shannon Yip
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, you know, 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, we are visitors. We are immigrants. And there’s a lot of things outside this community that we have not explored. So 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. Subculture means that there’s Toisan, there’s Hoiping, there’s Chungsan, there’s Canton. There’s different perspectives, different discussion in terms of like, how we should be in America. So through dance where they would perform some… Oh, yeah, that’s not…Yeah, Mongolia, I remember that. Or, oh, yeah, that’s Chinese. But I don’t remember that being, you know, that being that way. So that’s my understanding. Okay, how it 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, so there’s certain terminology that is…you can learn from it. 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. Well when growing rice, this is…the reason why we’re doing it? Because this is how we put the rice seedling into the ground. So we convert it, using that motion, convert it into a dance. People always like “Ribbon dance and fan dance!” Well, they’re never really one “authentic” ribbon dance. It came about because people were celebrating, so everybody always have some kind of handkerchief or belt tied around their waist. So to enhance the atmosphere, they would take their belts or hangers and they wave it in air. And then from waving it in the air became a structural waving, to everybody doing at the same time. And eventually, a dance was formed to represent, you know, this celebration of ribbons.
Steve Yip 22:00
Okay, so sort of what you’re describing is that the Chinese Folk Dance Association and as you got more involved in it, you realized that it was actually promoting folk dancing as opposed to high end, high culture dancing. And when you say Chinese, you already kind of made an inference that Chinese wasn’t just one homogenous culture.
Shannon Yip
Correct.
Steve Yip
All right. Is that correct?
Shannon Yip
That is correct. Because it’s like…
Steve Yip
So this is something that’s more among the culture, among the common folk. Is that correct? Would that be accurate?
Shannon Yip 22:38
The folk dance? It would be among common folks, yes. Because there’s a difference between folk dancing versus classical dancing. Classical dancing is influenced by the courts. So we did eventually learn classical dancing.
Steve Yip
Oh, you did?
Shannon Yip
Yeah, we did, because that’s also part of our culture. And we did two different performances where we made a comparison between countryside dance performance and palace.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
It was like something…the title was something like “From palaces to the country” or “From countryside to the palace,” something like that.
Steve Yip 23:15
So when you talk about country, you talk about agrarian society.
Shannon Yip
Yes.
Steve Yip
Okay. So that’s where folk dance comes from. Basically it wasn’t like…and when you say court, you’re talking about what the monarchy or…?
Shannon Yip 23:30
Yeah. The palaces, the palaces, the kings, when people come to be entertained. They are confined in terms of what they can do. Confined in terms of space, they can do. So the refinement we find in the attire that they wear, this also distributed in terms of what the movement is. And to us, to me, that’s court dancing, we were able to distinguish that.
Steve Yip 23:56
Okay, who are providing that kind of direction? And there were participants when you were still very young. Were you sort of inculcated/educated/informed about the character of the culture you are sharing? You know, because you just made two distinctions. You know, the country in other words, agrarian society among the common folk, and then you make a reference to the courts, the high end in Chinese traditional society. So where people actually taught this? People who got involved in this, were they actually taught this? How was that? How was shared with, you know, how was the leader sharing this information with you people?
Shannon Yip 24:40
We didn’t, they didn’t.
Steve Yip
They did not?
Shannon Yip
They did not. It was not a clear vision. It was kind of like a roundabout way when we’re trying to come up with performances and stuff. And it was an idea of, like, Shangri-La, give you an example, Shangri-La. And it’s like, because we did because we had different ethnic dances, as well. And as we come…the discussion was, this was mainly in Chinese, so I didn’t catch on every[thing]. But I caught it because the product came out the way it did. I was able to figure it out. Yeah.
Steve Yip 25:22
Oh, you had…It basically was left to a[n] individual to actually come up with a[n] understanding of what the goals and the mission of the Chinese Folk Dance Association was about.
Shannon Yip
Not that.
Steve Yip
Was it overt? Was it overly explained to you? Or you just, kind of, on your own figured it out?
Shannon Yip 25:43
On my own I figured it out. Because the basic, the basic mission of the Chinese Folk Dance Association is to promote Chinese culture through dance. With leadership and understanding of the past and history and how it affects our lives today. Because then, even though that’s a very generic mission, circumstances that are, that we face…still leads to that general mission, where we’re still providing diversity in terms of what our culture is like.
Steve Yip 26:26
There’s someone actually explained that? Or there never was…?
Shannon Yip 26:30
No, eventually it was explained. It was explained through the forewords in our programs.
Steve Yip 26:34
Four words? What’s the four words?
Shannon Yip 26:37
No, not the number four, but the program brochures.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
So I was trying to explain the one example is this that, “From the countryside to the palace.” I forgot what the name of it, the actual name. But there was a description of why this is the theme of this program. And there was another one where we did: Mulan Returns.
Steve Yip
Mulan Returns?
Shannon Yip
Yeah, there was actually a dance called Mulan Returns. So what we did was we did Women Warrior. Okay, so then we explain why it’s Women Warriors. So we learn it. We have a discussion among ourselves, and the veterans and immigrants who has a better understanding of our history, share their knowledge to us, the rest of us. And then we will have a bet, that I as an immigrant and as American-born, [who] have a better understanding of what our culture is. For Woman Warrior, for example, we have a dance that is more military for females. I’ve learned that there was a…during the Civil War, one of the civil wars, called dagger society that China had made a dance drama and all of it. Actually that concept came from a real thing. There was that society of people. And there’s another group of people who were….female militants who wore red scarf. So they were also not only rebels, but also protectors of the land or the countryside, but they are real, real people that existed. So I learned it only as a dance. So as one dance to this dance to this dance. Like all these women warriors existed back in those days, before, you know, before Mulan came around. So, we said “Okay, let’s do Women Warriors.”
Steve Yip 28:43
Was this traditional? This whole story about Mulan Returns, about women warriors? I’m trying to see what the 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 Chinese Folk Dance Association?
Shannon Yip
No, not at all.
Steve Yip
There wasn’t?
Shannon Yip 29:03
No, not at all.
Steve Yip 29:05
Okay, that’s interesting.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Who are the key players in driving the CFDA?
Shannon Yip 29:11
Well, the key players are still my parents’ friends, and a few of them who are involved with music and dance, kind of, perpetuated the organization. So of all the clubs and groups that was part of this organization, dance was the only one that stayed together and lasted the longest. Okay, and from that, people would come and join. And it became more organized. And for the first few dances that were learned, were learned from books.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
Or from black and white movies that they saw. That was performed, somehow. 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.
Steve Yip 30:14
What kind of people got involved? How did you guys grow? I can see that.
Shannon Yip 30:21
It kind of grew from two ends. One end is that people really understand the fact that promotion of the 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 a culture. So there are people who are more supportive of a folk dancing organization, 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 and more of a…not a need, a more of…validation to their own culture.
Steve Yip 31:30
Why did they need validation?
Shannon Yip 31:34
Because I think at that time as I was growing up,
Steve Yip 31:39
This is… what? The late, early 60s?
Shannon Yip 31:41
Early 60s. We were… it was like… People were telling us what our Chinese culture should be.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
I mean, I had people told me, it’s like, they come up. Oh, I want to… We have people who are in charge of this, in charge of that, like a liaison. And let’s say… the San Francisco Arts Commission came to visit us, and our liaison person wasn’t there. So one of our leaders came in and met her, this person. The representative of this Arts Commission didn’t want to talk to this other female leader. They want to talk to that particular representative, because she liked the way that woman looked and act, because it’s more Chinese. The person who will represent culture? The way she dressed was not pleasant to her. It’s not what Chinese supposed to look like.
Steve Yip 32:45
How did this person look?
Shannon Yip 32:48
Well, basically very country-like. She had her pig tails on. You know, her top does not match her bottom. It’s like different texture and stuff.
Steve Yip 32:58
In other words, she didn’t look sophisticated, right?
Shannon Yip
Correct.
Steve Yip
Okay, that’s interesting. So the visit never came through or did it?
Shannon Yip 33:06
It came, it came through. But we made it, they made another visit, because that person, our liaison finally showed up.
Steve Yip 33:14
That’s an interesting story. That’s very interesting. So was there any relationship developed with the San Francisco Arts Commission?
Shannon Yip 33:21
There were. Eventually we were partly funded by them.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
Yeah, we were partly funded by them. That was one part.
Steve Yip 33:29
How you know that that person couldn’t relate to that individual? Because of the way they…
Shannon Yip 33:36
Because I understood more English than the rest of the group, and I heard what that person said.
Steve Yip
She said to this person’s face?
Shannon Yip
No, yeah. She says, you know, “Where’s So-And-So? You know, she’s the Chinese person.” You know, I go, “What do you mean, she’s the Chinese person?”
Steve Yip
The Chinese person.
Shannon Yip
So none of other people caught on but what’s…
Steve Yip 34:01
What was that, a racist stereotyping?
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
And the person asking was white.
Shannon Yip
Correct.
Steve Yip
Okay, that’s interesting. Not interesting, but interesting. Alright, so, um…
Shannon Yip 34:18
I couldn’t do anything about it because I was too young.
Steve Yip 34:21
How old were you then?
Shannon Yip 34:22
I think it 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 wave.
Steve Yip 34:32
Who would reprimand you?
Shannon Yip 34:38
The founder would have reprimanded me, the leader would have reprimanded me. And the people who do other dance, who don’t want to make wave.
Steve Yip 34:46
I see. Who’s the founder?
Shannon Yip 34:50
The founder was Jackson Chan.
Steve Yip 34:52
Okay. He was known as the founder.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Oh, wow. Okay.
Shannon Yip 35:00
When CFDA became officially formed, …
Steve Yip
Yeah.
Shannon Yip
He was designated as the founder.
Steve Yip 35:05
When you say officially formed, was it, you know, they had to…
Shannon Yip 35:09
They had it notarized. They had…
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
What’s the word for? Legally document that CFDA is a nonprofit organization.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
And that through…our lawyer was Dr. Gordon Lau.
Steve Yip 35:24
Oh really?
Shannon Yip 35:27
Him Mark Lai was involved. Those are two names I know. The other two people I don’t know their names.
Steve Yip 35:42
Do you know when that took place?
Shannon Yip 35:46
I think ‘59.
Steve Yip 35:51
Is there, has there been a written history? When people join and get involved with a Chinese Folk Dance Association, is there a written history to give people background?
Shannon Yip 36:05
Yeah.
Steve Yip
There is?
Shannon Yip
There is. We created one when we went back to China, and I wrote one based on my understanding and approval from the committee.
Steve Yip
Who’s the committee?
Shannon Yip
Committee was the executive committee.
Steve Yip
They had an executive committee?
Shannon Yip
They had an executive committee.
Steve Yip 36:21
They had a separate board of directors?
Shannon Yip 36:24
Yeah, we had a board of directors. And within the board of directors, we have a separate committee.
Steve Yip 36:32
Okay. Can you… do you want… will you share other names in the executive committee?
Shannon Yip 36:37
I can’t, because I don’t know exactly who they are.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
Okay. I don’t. All I know is that when we have meetings during our group, we all sit there and listen. And 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 the sub-coordinator, sub-director. Presently you know, we have executive director, so I was only a program director. I didn’t… When everybody else retired and I took over the CFDA for seven years, I didn’t take up the word “Director”. I just… I maintained my title as the program director.
Steve Yip
Was there an executive director?
Shannon Yip
Yeah, there was. He was. He retired, but nobody retired his title nor his name.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
So I just kept my title as program director.
Steve Yip
Program director.
Shannon Yip
I was program director, sub-instructor, sub-you know dot-dot-dot slash dot-dot-dot. Because I told Jackson in when we talked right? When Jackson tried to make me the new director. So 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.
Steve Yip 38:10
So they are kind of prejudiced themselves.
Shannon Yip 38:13
Yeah. Number one, well, yeah, number one was mainly, I was not just female, I was American-born, so how would I know so much about, you know…
Steve Yip 38:20
So it sounded like they were amazed by it, or do you think they were disturbed by it?
Shannon Yip 38:26
They weren’t disturbed, but I think they were shocked because…
Steve Yip
They were shocked.
Shannon Yip
Yeah, they were shocked. I think they had… they eventually learned that things move forward.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
Because, because my line to them was like “Your children born here? Are your grandchildren born here?” And if the answer was, yes, well duh. Don’t you think they should learn these things too?
Steve Yip
Yeah.
Shannon Yip
And that kind of like, gives them a different outlook, in terms of like, “Oh, yeah, that’s true.” You’re moving back to China? You’re raising your grandchildren here or are you raising your grandchildren over there?
Steve Yip 39:03
Right, that’s an interesting question. So they basically sounds like that they basically… how they grew aside from… well, there’s two ways to look at growth. There’s two elements of growth. One is you have to grow in terms of participants in the dance group, right? And where did that pool of people come from? It seems obvious to me, they came from other immigrant families. So then the other thing was, I don’t know, were there any, you know, college students got involved with it? Then another part of growth would be: how did you extend externally into the greater community, not just the Chinese immigrant community? If you were…
Shannon Yip 39:46
Let me finish that first part first.
Steve Yip
Go ahead.
Shannon Yip
First part is that there’s a part two, which I didn’t get involved, didn’t get into, is that there’s a lot more college students willing to join us because of China. And the US-China relationship had a great impact in people wanting to support the Chinese Folk Dance Association.
Steve Yip
Okay, okay, uh huh.
Shannon Yip
And 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.
Steve Yip
Mhm.
Shannon Yip
Right? And so 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 most—best resources we have in terms of learning what Chinese dance was. We didn’t get too much from Taiwan. We did in the early years, we did learn some dances from Taiwan. But our best resource[s] happened to be from China and the relationship because we were there and the US-China relationship are… we are a resources group. So there are a lot of young people from college-age who were also involved with us, because of our, number one, of the culture, something that they feel validated.
Steve Yip 41:14
Are these ABCs?
Shannon Yip 41:15
These are…not yet. Not yet. Not yet-ABCs.
Steve Yip
Oh, these are Chinese international students?
Shannon Yip
Yeah. Because they get…because of the validation. They join us because of US-China friendship.
Steve Yip
I get it.
Shannon Yip
They join us. And because there was a lot more… all of a sudden a lot more colleges were doing cultural…
Steve Yip 41:34
Exchanges, programs.
Shannon Yip 41:38
No, it’s performances. Okay, Lunar New Year performance.
Steve Yip
Oh right.
Shannon Yip
Student…what you call it? Performances. So they felt validated seeing that Chinese Folk Dance Association doing this openly, that they’ve reached out: either join us or have us perform for them. So Stanford is one of the schools that had a large number of Chinese immigrants. And they join. Some of them join us in terms of art or music group. Some join us in our terms of instrumental 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 42:23
[laughs] So a lot of these Chinese international students, not all of them would be immigrants or maybe later on became immigrants? But they… the folk dance group became a magnet for them. It sounds like during this period of times, 1971-72? During the relaxing of restrictions and trade and openness with China. So this is… basically after Nixon visited China, things changed a lot.
Shannon Yip 42:52
I don’t know if it was before or after. I can’t say this after at all. All I know if this was happening, and it could be… I think it is before and after. All I know is that the US relationship, and people, their heart because their hearts still belong to motherland. Whether that motherland is national, the National China, Communist China, China-China, Hong Kong-China, they didn’t care. That’s where their homeland is.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
Okay, their family, they migrated from either Hong Kong, parts of Canton, or other parts of China. But they felt united because there’s something in common.
Steve Yip
What about Taiwan?
Shannon Yip
Taiwan, we welcome as well, but because of politics, there’s collisions.
Steve Yip 43:38
Right, I mean, that is a time where there was that schism.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
You know, when people tried to figure out whether their so-called allegiance was aligned.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
You saw that movie Chan Is Missing. You know, there was like, you know, this guy was torn. This guy Chan was torn between what was going on between Mainland China and Taiwan. But did you have people from Taiwan who actually got interested in the Folk Dance Association?
Shannon Yip 44:04
We did, we did, I don’t know… 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 are done in Chinese and the language was over my head.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
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 dinner with him before I picked up or get 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 join us for many years and she’s a great dancer, so we didn’t care. You want to dance with us? She didn’t…we didn’t care, she didn’t care. We were just dancing.
Steve Yip 44:57
Did it get, you know, did it have opinions about the political divide between mainland and Taiwan?
Shannon Yip 45:04
Some, I don’t know. Not enough to distort us from being together to dance. And that’d be just before that though, there was becoming more influx of American-born joining the group.
Steve Yip 45:16
When was that?
Shannon Yip 45:24
Let me think. The end of my college days.
Steve Yip 45:28
Okay, that would be…what?
Shannon Yip
’74-75.
Steve Yip
Mid-70s, right?
Shannon Yip 45:32
Yeah. Mid-70s, late 70s and 80s, we had more American-born joining the group.
Steve Yip 45:38
How do they hear about the folk dance group?
Shannon Yip
Parents?
Steve Yip
From parents?
Shannon Yip 45:42
Yeah, parents. Parents, aunts. A friend. l have one friend whose cousin said “Oh, you know, you like dancing? Join them.”
Steve Yip 45:56
You guys never had, you guys being the Folk Dance Association, never had a recruitment drive, or…?
Shannon Yip 46:04
No. People just brought their friends over.
Steve Yip
By word of mouth?
Shannon Yip
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 46:19
You mentioned that the dance group or the Folk Dance Association started developing different studios. Tell us about that.
Shannon Yip 46:33
The studio, okay. We were, we, this was… after already we had a large productions. We performed at [the] opera house. We had over a hundred. It was like we were 1/3 of the audience, basically. That’s how many people we had on stage for finale. We had a lot… we had a lot of people joining. And I started the Oakland studio only because I wanted supplemental income.
Steve Yip 47:03
Oh, you got paid?
Shannon Yip 47:05
I wanted supplemental income. And I started Oakland studio with the Oakland Recreation Center. So I was paid 60-40.
Steve Yip
Who paid you?
Shannon Yip
The students.
Steve Yip
Oh, that’s interesting.
Shannon Yip
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 47:31
So to be a participant, you have to pay dues, in other words.
Shannon Yip 47:34
For who? From whom?
Steve Yip
The students, the people who have participated.
Shannon Yip
I did that in Oakland, yes.
Steve Yip 47:44
Did the other…Did the main body do that too?
Shannon Yip 47:49
No.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
Yeah, the only way I can rent. That’s the only way I can rent the place. We’ve been in San… 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? I’ve been, I’ve been retired 12 years, two years. I can’t remember. It was basically the last 20 years we started charging students. Everything else before that: Volunteer.
Steve Yip 48:29
Totally volunteer?
Shannon Yip
Totally volunteer.
Steve Yip
Before then.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip 48:33
So I started this Oakland studio. And then we had more people interested coming from the South Bay, and one of our teachers, one of the dance instructors 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 studio feeds into the San Francisco one. So when I closed the Oakland one, I already taken half of my students to San Francisco.
Steve Yip 49:09
So the other teachers, they were also non-paid volunteers?
Shannon Yip 49:15
Because the transition from when we were getting money from, funding from…San Francisco Arts Commission…we also got some from somewhere else. I can’t remember now.
Steve Yip 49:33
But fundraising was done. I mean, you had to sustain an operation.
Shannon Yip 49:41
We had to stay in operation. We had to apply for funding. Something endowment. It’ll come to me, but it’s something endowment.
Steve Yip
But did you actually…?
Shannon Yip
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. So 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 instructor before.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
And then before we start hiring for instructor, we would have exchanges with visiting or visiting dance companies.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
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, choreographer, instructors from mainland to come visit us. So in terms of how to choreograph Chinese dancing, how do you know, why did this dance look the way it does? How do you identify the country, the folk part of this dance? What is the folk movement of these people?
Steve Yip 51:17
When you say folk, you’re talking about different minority groups?
Shannon Yip 51:21
Minority group and countryside people. Everyday, just everyday people. Okay, so just like the island. There’s some island, Hoi Nan Island.
Steve Yip
Yeah, I heard of it.
Shannon Yip
They use bamboo, similar to the Filipinos, in terms of clapping it, clapping it on the ground and putting it together. Okay, and that’s because why? That’s because the island had a lot of bamboos. Okay. Tibetan. And why 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. So when they carry things up the hill, they’re hunched over, and from that hunched over, the dance style became. Mongolians because they live in a tent and it’s low, most of them are low. They’re more two dimension.
Steve Yip 52:21
Did the participants, especially the younger people today actually learn about this? Not just learning the dances but what was behind these dances?
Shannon Yip 52:30
We didn’t do that until later on, because a lot of the immigrants from Hong Kong and directly from China kind of knew that. Because that’s part of their history, in the making as they were growing up. Because us American-born, in our history book we don’t understand those kinds of things. So we don’t know why or where these come from. So we would ask questions like “Why do you have to do that?” And these people would explain it to us. So it was like “Oh, they do that because of this. They do that because of this.”
Steve Yip 53:06
It sounds…it does not sound like there was a formal attempt to actually teach people the cultural backgrounds or they did?
Shannon Yip 53:17
Not general. In general, no, but there was a period of time we did so. Yes, because we had a parent who is very history-oriented, and especially Chinese history-oriented. So there was a period of maybe five years where we had workshop sessions. So we stopped dance for a half an hour, and she would give us a history lesson or explaining lesson. And then, especially when I teach, I would teach the kids “Okay, you’re learning Tibetan dance.” I go, “What’s Tibet?” and they have no clue. I said, “Well. So we have to explain what is Tibetan.” And I can need to insert something very interesting in San Francisco, because I did the same thing with the recent group, maybe four years ago? Five years ago. And I go, and I asked them “Okay, there’s the minority and there’s majority. Who are the majority of people in your school?” “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, you know, 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 like, these ethnic groups, why they call them minorities.
Steve Yip 55:06
Okay. That’s interesting.
Shannon Yip 55:08
So we only have that for a period of time. We did that for a long durations. And then I think one of our instructor caught on. He, because his English is better and he caught on, he would do the same thing before he start the dance. He would explain the background to these kids.
Steve Yip 55:27
So it wasn’t a conscious decision by the leadership to do this kind of teaching?
Shannon Yip 55:34
It wasn’t formally done. Only for a short period of time. Because that’s when we started the educational leadership program.
Steve Yip 55:45
When was that?
Shannon Yip 55:47
The educational leadership program? When I was… actually I started that program.
Steve Yip 56:06
Who’s that?
Shannon Yip
That’s Ron’s Phone.
Steve Yip
What got you to do that?
Shannon Yip 56:09
Because of what I learned, how I learned it. How I did not see people catching on.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
And like I said, “Okay, homework: and I want you to find out about this.” And the parents would ask me “Well, how are they supposed to find out?” “Well, they can’t go to library?” “You know, they don’t have time to go to library just to look up this information.” And I go, “You. You know, they can ask you.” And so that became an aha-moment from our parents, that they have so much knowledge of our culture that they don’t know how to share it with their children. The educational leadership program, I made it where they asked the parents about it.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
Okay. Leadership part of it is where you transition. You have…you always find somebody in this group of dancer[s] who shows more leadership, there’s strength in the organization. Their strength is that they can help reveal this dance with this, because their memory is good. So I would designate different students in charge of different things. “You’re in charge of a costume for this group. You’re in charge of make sure the music. You’re in charge of the makeup.” So they have to be in a leadership position. And then as a leadership position, you have to know the background of the dance that you’re learning. Then you need to know what I need to gather.
Steve Yip 57:43
So actually, there was a pretty intricate organization developed within the Chinese Folk Dance Association.
Shannon Yip 57:49
It kind of slowly rolled into that, more and more.
Steve Yip 57:53
So you have different departments basically. And department heads.
Shannon Yip 57:58
Yeah, yeah, we did. We have somebody in charge of the parent group.
Steve Yip
What is the parent group?
Shannon Yip
The parent group is getting the parents involved. Parents can be involved with costume-mending. In terms of…or in charge of a newsletter, we started a newsletter. They can put the newsletter together. They can help with backstage. They can help with tickets and promotion. So there’s little things that the parents could get involved with.
Steve Yip 58:35
Were they formally trained in that? Were there workshops?
Shannon Yip 58:39
Not as much as…”You want to volunteer and help? Okay, here, can you do this?”
Steve Yip
Sure.
Shannon Yip
“Can you do this?” “Sure.” And then they have question[s] and they ask you, and then after they do it a couple of times. “Can you now tell these parents what to do?” And 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.
Steve Yip
I get it.
Shannon Yip
And then ask them. Some of them became really 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.
Steve Yip 59:14
So when there’re dance moms and dance dads, how old are the kids?
Shannon Yip 59:19
It varied. We have some kindergarten dance moms and dads. And then we have some high school dance mom and dads.
Steve Yip
Oh, wow.
Shannon Yip
I mean, the dads could be in some… some dads and moms would be in charge of transportation. Because we have to transport costume and children.
Steve Yip 59:40
So a lot of it was actually volunteer-driven.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Okay, that’s pretty good. That’s pretty interesting.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Did you develop a syllabus for the educational leadership program?
Shannon Yip
No, I didn’t.
Steve Yip
Oh. How’d you do it?
Shannon Yip 1:00:03
I think it started as… I was thinking more like my classroom. My classroom, I will have a monitor for this, a monitor for that, monitor for that. And so being a program director, I had 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 discussion. “How did it go? You know, how would you change it?” And then eventually, let them take over. Because when I was… before I retired, for about seven years, I ran the Dance Association. I didn’t really have to do that much, because all that dancer and parents knew what to do when it came to performance.
Steve Yip 1:01:03
So you have meetings though, right?
Shannon Yip
I had meetings.
Steve Yip
You have to have meetings.
Shannon Yip 1:01:06
At the end of each class, I will have meet with the whole group, the whole class, 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?” [noises] Now look at the mom, I said, “You’re gonna check on them. Make sure if he tells…” You know, like, 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 teng). “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, these classes, I will make sure the parents understood and checked in. And then those who have/are weaker parents, so that 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 kind of helped out.
Steve Yip 1:02:12
So you had people who are primarily dancers who are the face to the public, but also you have to have a back office infrastructure, right?
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Okay, so you guys developed that. And how many… I call them satellites. How many studios did you have?
Shannon Yip 1:02:29
Three. Two studios and one main. San Francisco was our core. Oakland, one studio. Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale was the second one.
Steve Yip 1:02:38
That’s interesting. Okay. All right. I guess my last point would be… you gave me a sense of just how leadership was provided or was exercised in the group. How would you describe the dynamics in general?
Shannon Yip 1:03:02
There’s a variation in dynamics. One is, I come from a very American-born perspective. And a lot of immigrants sees that.
Steve Yip 1:03:13
Okay, they see it. In other words, they see it.
Shannon Yip 1:03:16
Whether or not they agree with me is two different thing. So I have a group of immigrants who says yes, because of society the way it is, how I’m doing is the most effective, because I can reach their children more—most effectively. Right? Whereas those who want to do with more what they think is traditionally is that [it] have to be somebody with a title.
Steve Yip
I see.
Shannon Yip
Okay, and have to be professionally trained. So I was accused of destroying dance group, because I was not professionally trained.
Steve Yip
Professionally trained in what?
Shannon Yip
In Chinese folk dancing.
Steve Yip
Oh, I see.
Shannon Yip
Okay? And so they didn’t, 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. Right? So I was accused of, “Oh, I can do better if you let me back. You pay me this much, I can do better.” Or said “Oh, I should have trained you more. I should provide you more training.” Provide me more training so you can do better. 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. Because I have two dancers who are substitutes. If I can’t make it, they teach for me. The class continues, whereas 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, you know, prosper. Because eventually we have to, you know, it’s going to be their world. They can’t be all the way, the way they used, the way they learned, it is the same. Because the environment has already changed, circumstances already changed. So they try to force what they see is the right approach. It’s not…it’s going to be successful for a very short time. It’s going to fall apart. I mean, it’s like the same as our parents. Our parents will always sometimes… they will force because they were raised a certain way. And they can’t…they adapted to survival mode, but they always try to talk to us how they were raised. And that becomes a conflict, because our world is now more westernized. Americanized. So as well as Chinese, culturally. So we have a dynamic of three different circumstances.
Steve Yip 1:06:11
The three circumstances: Western, Americanized, and Chinese?
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Shannon Yip 1:06:19
Because Baba (my dad) said something to me a long time ago. I had an argument with him in terms of like, what he wants to teach us and how come he contradicts himself. We talked about contradictions and stuff. Okay. It’s like we have it, there’s a phrase, you know. “You walk the walk, you know, talk the talk,” right? “You’re not walking the walk! You’re telling us one thing, but you’re not doing it.” And he had a real profound response, and 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 into a more global and be able to adapt to a more different society than he [can]. And he has a hard time changing. Which is, same thing with my mother-in-law saying 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. And I took that to heart, because a lot of things that we’re doing, you know, your future grandchildren, you know.
Steve Yip 1:07:41
I guess this would be the very last question: is the Chinese Folk Dance Association still operating?
Shannon Yip 1:07:50
It is operating. Not at all at um… I had a hard time. The board and the director had a hard time converting it into a class of just learning Chinese dance. Because I was…I was giving them an example, how people would take ballet class, you know. Take jazz class, or they take piano lessons. And 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 physic. And some people like it. Some people become professional. Some people open their own studio after that. But we don’t have to become the professional dance company. Okay, there’s no reason for us to strive to that. So there is an argument within us in terms of understanding which direction we should go. So, after I took over seven years, I ran it like an educational program. I ran it like I run a ballet school. But I don’t run a ballet school like that. I run it like my own classroom, and the content is dance. This ballet studio don’t run the way I run my class. So that was the argument and that was the conflict. So right now it is providing… dance company is providing exposures to what Chinese culture, dance, and culture is. Through the third generation, meaning that our students are taking over. So they’re running it like basically a dance class.
Steve Yip 1:09:48
Oh, so it still operates and functions and has programming?
Shannon Yip 1:09:54
It has programming. But it doesn’t get, it doesn’t reach toward a major dance production like we did, like we did before.
Steve Yip 1:10:02
Okay, so it has, sort of, downscaled its vision maybe?
Shannon Yip 1:10:09
I don’t know if I’ll say downscale and vision as much as resources and strategies. So in terms of the resource, we’re limited in our resources now. We’re depending on our previous students to run it. And right now, we’re lucky and very, very…more than happy that our dance students are taking over. That means we did something successful, we’re 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 like wan an style of using the fan. There’s, like, 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. These ask that question.
Steve Yip 1:11:27
Well, how big is it now? How big is the, um…
Shannon Yip 1:11:30
We have an adult group now who does dance routines. Okay, 講組舞 gong zou mou?. What they call gong zou mou. So 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. So that we have adult person. One of our dancers, one of our first dancers, first professional “professionals”-looking dancers is teaching the adults. And we have 2-3 students. One from the earlier stage, one from the middle part of CFDA, and one from the recent who are teaching right now. So that’s a good variety, range of students who will come back.
Steve Yip 1:12:27
So when you say adults, you’re not talking about parents.
Shannon Yip
Yeah.
Steve Yip
Oh, you are talking about parents.
Shannon Yip 1:12:33
We have parents who are joining us. We have adults who are not our parents, but adults who have joined. I would like to go back and join them as well, but because of my health issue, I haven’t gone back yet. And then my personal dancers is in charge of one group.
Steve Yip 1:12:54
Okay. All right. Wanna add anything else?
Shannon Yip 1:13:00
No, I can add what I think of. Not at this particular time.
Steve Yip 1:13:06
You mentioned Mark Lai earlier. Was he a part of the early parts of the dance group?
Shannon Yip 1:13:13
Him Mark Lai helped with the formation of CFDA. He also helped with… he was part of, I guess, the committee that actually…the Chinatown group, in terms of when we perform for Chinatown, for various reasons and stuff. He was there. I don’t know in what capacity. I know he was there.
Steve Yip 1:13:41
This is early on. Isn’t that like…?
Shannon Yip 1:13:43
Yes, this is early on, during the establishment.
Steve Yip 1:13:48
Okay. You seem to know that, even though you were a kid then.
Shannon Yip 1:13:54
Yeah. I know. I know Uncle Mark. I see them. I see them there. They’re talking.
Steve Yip 1:13:59
He was around, in other words.
Shannon Yip
He was around, you know, and then I know he was, they were talking to important people.
Steve Yip
Do you remember anybody else besides Jackson?
Shannon Yip 1:14:11
Alpha Gilman.
Steve Yip 1:14:13
Okay, well, that’s…
Shannon Yip 1:14:16
Other than that, other people…like Gordon Lau. He was the lawyer that helped us formalize CFDA.
Steve Yip
Yeah, but he wasn’t part of dance group. He didn’t…
Shannon Yip
No.
Steve Yip
Okay.
Shannon Yip
But he was one of the supporters.
Steve Yip 1:14:36
Alright, I think that’s it. Okay, some of these other questions basically came up and sort of answered themselves. I got a sense of dynamics, and I really wanted to see whether or not the leadership have to develop a vision and express that and share that with people. And it seemed like it wasn’t formally done.
Shannon Yip 1:15:07
Yeah. I’m sure it was done. Among the Chinese-speaking people.
Steve Yip 1:15:12
Among the Chinese-speaking. Okay. Yeah, that’s a problem we have here.
Shannon Yip 1:15:17
Yeah. And then probably if you speak to one of the board director, they come up with a different perspective to some of my answers, because they are more involved with the political. Maybe the political side and development and the conflict, the conflict with politics, that kind of thing. They have to, because they’re more involved, to stay neutral. That I don’t know about those conversations.
Steve Yip 1:15:47
Who else is in the Board of Directors? Was it really formal and other people actually ran the place?
Shannon Yip
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Yip
Do you remember anybody else?
Shannon Yip
Other than…?
Steve Yip
Um, some of this stuff can be researched because if you formally set yourself up as a nonprofit legal entity, you have to register your board of directors.
Shannon Yip 1:16:06
Yeah, I know they were registered. I don’t know exactly who they are or when. I know Paul for music. He was a music director. But people like Him Mark Lai was part of our board.
Steve Yip
Oh, Mark was part of the board.
Steve Yip
Yeah. Gilman was part of the board. Jackson was part of the board. All men!
Steve Yip
All men.
Shannon Yip
Okay? That’s another dynamic.
Steve Yip
Yeah.
Shannon Yip
It was all men.
Steve Yip 1:16:41
Okay, that’s not healthy. This question, I lost already. Okay, so the Chinese Folk Dance Association 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 1:17:12
We can’t help it with the production. Mainly because our dancers are not of quality to put the large mass production. There may be like a handful of dancers who can actually dance, challenge some of the professionals because they’ve learned to dance that well. That they can join a professional group if they choose to. But as a whole, dance production has…it would be too much. A handful of good dancers and the rest of them are mediocre dancers. So a lot of it is like, like… the last performance we had was more of a, uh, student recital.
Steve Yip 1:17:58
Okay, that’s good. So it 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.
Shannon Yip 1:18:29
Long interview. You know, some of my answers are like because it’s on top of my head. It’s random.