Come to Chow Down Chinatown for a night of food, community, and Chynatruckerfunk

by Bridget Stringer-Holden on July 11th, 2023 at 3:40 PM

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Shon Wong has always wanted to create a sound for Chinese Canadians.

“We’ve been here in Canada for a very long time, and unlike other races who have cultivated their own music culture … it's either we have to get behind jazz or rap or country—things that kind of look funny when we do it,” he tells the Straight with a laugh.

So, Wong decided to make his own sound that incorporates the music he likes—Jimi Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, and Michael Jackson—with Asian instrumentation.

He calls it Chynatruckerfunk.

Wong grew up in a musical family, with his father in a prominent Chinatown hillbilly band and his mother’s side in an opera troupe. Still, it wasn’t until he was 20 and his dad had passed away that he started playing music himself.

“To deal with that, I got into music and learned how to play the guitar,” Wong shares, noting that at the time it was strictly instrumental. In 2013, when the girl he’d been dating died, Wong started singing and writing lyrics. This led to the creation of his band, Son of James, and subsequently the creation of the Chynatruckerfunk sound.

While Son of James started with smaller shows at film festivals and the Roxy, they’ve since created an EP called Dragons in the Sky and performed at the 2019 Vancouver Folk Fest.

“People were really biting into what we were trying to do and this new type of sound that we were trying to promote,” Wong says.

With long ties to Chinatown through his father—and grandfather who came over to work on the railroad in the late 1800s—Wong decided to create Chow Down Chinatown, which is happening July 14 at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver.

The idea is for people to get takeout from local businesses, meet others in the community, and enjoy live music and kung fu movie screenings. Among the entertainment is Sax with Eric, as well as Son of James, of course, including new songs featuring the “dark Asian funk type of sounds” that will make up their new EP, Chynatruckerfunk.

“It's the first time where I think a lot of these businesses in Chinatown feel they’re part of something,” Wong says. He’s hoping to highlight that Chinatown is evolving into an eatery hub; getting restaurants on board was originally challenging, but the community has since thrown its support behind the event.

Wong also mentioned that the Chinese Cultural Centre has been instrumental in putting the event together. “This is really out of their comfort zone, and for them to let me do this is a big deal,” he says.

“I think a lot of people are in limbo about what Chinatown is right now, and hopefully this is the first step in bringing together and stepping forward into a new Chinatown, so to speak,” he continues. “And that doesn’t mean we don’t preserve the past or history, but there’s a way to move forward with Chinatown … and spring the whole community forward, put some money into it, and help some of the local businesses that are struggling.”