Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

You are invited to celebrate the 11th annual Dances with Dragons, which was started ten years ago by students from Mount Currie (see background below). This is not a performance but a genuine celebration of another year of journey with the First People and one more step towards reconciliation. To that end, please share the following invitation with your friends:

Event: 11th annual “Dances with Dragons” (set inside the Chinese New Year Parade)

Organisers: Chinese Christians In Action, Canadians For Reconciliation

Date: 29 January 2006 (Sunday)

Time: 10:45 am to 1 pm (with simple lunch to follow)

Meeting Place: 375 East Pender Street, Vancouver (Chinese Mennonite Church)

Background: Since 1990, members of CCIA through visiting and listening discovered the true history between British Columbia and the indigenous people. To foster understanding and respect, CCIA has conducted numerous bus tours up to Mount Currie Reserve, has organized different forums and gave birth to Canadians for Reconciliation in 2001. Thousands of Canadians and media personnel have journeyed with us on this road towards reconciliation.

Ten years ago through their teachers, the Mt. Currie students initiated their first visit to Vancouver’s Chinese New Year parade. We gladly did the local organizing & reception of some 50 young students. Amidst the sights and sounds of the colorful celebration, they seemed to be most fascinated with the dragon dance. After their second trip, they built a fourteen feet long dragon out of paper mache and sent us the memories of their encounter with the dragons in a picture book (Thus the name of the event).

This Province relationship with the First Nations has to match the recent nice words on paper. Furthermore after roused to demand for certainty and finality to their self-interests, very few British Columbians are asking for certainty of a restored relationship between the two people groups. “Dances with Dragons”, the first March for Reconciliation in 2002, and the historic banquet in 2004 are people’s efforts to reconciliation. By inviting the native friends and their children to join the Chinese New Year Parade, we wish to affirm the respect and dignity that they all deserve, and the friendship their forefathers and our forefathers once shared in Chinatown and in BC. By encouraging others to walk along side and listen, we may finally live out what life was intended to be. If our minds be like those children again, we too can have something to look forward to; we too may want to believe in dragons…

We will be honored if you can extend this invitation to First Nation friends young and old to participate in the parade. Wherever possible ask them to bring their drums and songs. Please ask them to wear regalia and bring a small banner to identify their group (not mandatory. Changing room is available at the church). Please note afternoon agenda is still under consideration pending amount of interest received from out of town student groups. So if you have/know of such a group coming, please let me know as soon as possible.

Through walking together, we can send a different message to the rest of the country. We look forward to seeing you there.

with warm New Year wishes, Bill Chu, Canadians For Reconciliation

CANADIANS FOR RECONCILIATION is a peaceful non-partisan grassroots movement committed to developing a new relationship with aboriginal people, one that signifies a deep apology for past injustice, a willingness to honor truth now and a resolve to embrace each other in the new millennium.