| Bay Area Canadians Celebrate Canada’s Immigrant Story at Kim’s Convenience
On Sunday, Canadians from all corners of the Bay Area converged at the Toni Rembe Theater for a special performance of Kim’s Convenience, celebrating our local Canadian community and Canada’s immigrant story more broadly.
A special “Canada Night” showing was organized by the Digital Moose Lounge, the Bay Area’s most established Canadian expat group, in collaboration with the Canadian consulate and ACT San Francisco. Attendees enjoyed an evening of theater as they followed an alternately hilarious and heart-warming day in the life of a Korean-Canadian family that runs a Toronto corner store. (A story that is surely familiar to anyone who is a fan of the hit CBC sitcom based on the play!)
The Canadian Studies Program was grateful to be invited to participate. Program representatives included Program Director Hidetaka Hirota, graduate students, and several board members.
The San Francisco production features a Canadian cast headed by playwright Ins Choi, who plays the titular Mr. Kim. Choi’s performance is the highlight of the show, as noted in the San Francisco Chronicle’s favorable review. Choi, who immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant, wrote the play to reflect his own experiences, and as a tribute to the many ways that immigrant families have contributed to Canada.
The production brought a little slice of Toronto into San Francisco with a replica of one of the city’s iconic corner stores. Torontonians in the audience were delighted by nostalgic touches from the sound of Ontario’s lottery jingle to the bags of milk in Mr. Kim’s refrigerators. Boxes of Canadian-branded goods and souvenirs stacked across the set were brought directly from Canada.
However, while the show is firmly rooted in Toronto, its themes also resonate in the Bay Area, particularly for the region’s Asian immigrant community. To celebrate the show’s opening, ACT partnered with local businesses for a photo exhibit titled “Our Store: Your Story” that celebrates San Francisco’s own immigrant-owned corner stores and the families behind them. And Mr. Kim himself gives a monologue about a Korean shopkeeper whose friends in the Black community saved his business during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. These stories demonstrate the intergenerational grit and cultural pride that permeate similar communities across North America.
After the show, friends of Canadian Studies were among the attendees invited to a special meet-and-greet with the play’s cast. Choi discussed how he had written the show to spark conversations about potentially difficult subjects such as identity, family, and legacy, and how he had updated the script to keep it relevant since its debut in 2011. Cast members also expressed their deep appreciation for the support shown by the local Canadian community, and their enjoyment of San Francisco. They were both surprised and delighted to discover that a world-renowned university like UC Berkeley has a program to study Canada!
Kim’s Convenience runs through October 19. See below for a special discount on tickets from our friends at DML! |
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Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 