Shannon Yip Part 3: The Chinese Folk Dance Association

In this interview, Shannon Yip elaborated on her experiences as the program director of the Chinese Folk Dance Association in the San Francisco Bay area and contextualized the role of education and cultural heritage for Chinese Americans. This interview was held over Zoom in June 2025 between Oakland, New York, and Berlin. Shannon discussed navigating the fine line between historically accurate styles of dance and stereotyping Chinese culture, as well as her efforts to draw upon the knowledge that immigrants from China, usually the parents of CFDA students, brought with them. She also shared her observations about changes in San Francisco’s Chinatown over the years, specifically increased political awareness and more pride in language and dialects, and her hopes for the younger generations of Chinese Americans. Shannon’s experiences and perspectives reflect the nuances of crafting Chinese diasporic identity. Both education and intentional communication play a central role in fostering a sense of belonging and community, especially as Chinese American communities face geopolitical pressures and include a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds brought by ongoing waves of Chinese migration to the United States. This interview was done by Gabrielle Hrung and includes written answers provided by Shannon Yip.

— Gabrielle Hrung, Berlin, August 21, 2025

Gabrielle Hrung

Hello, it is June 19, 2025. My name is Gabi, and I’m calling from Berlin, Germany. This is part three with Shannon Yip, who is in Oakland, California. Thank you, Shannon, for taking the time to talk with me today, and we will focus more on CFDA and the ethnic dances that they taught. We will also look to the future a bit, thinking about the next generation of the group and San Francisco Chinatown as a whole.

You had mentioned that a lot of members came from China, but also Hong Kong and Taiwan, and there were also American-Born Chinese (ABC) members. You talked about the experiences of teaching ethnic dances, for example from Hoi Nan island, Tibet, and Mongolia. One important point that you brought up was, sometimes when you are teaching these ethnic dances, it feels like stereotyping a culture. But then as you gain more knowledge and learn about the nuances and the distinctions, and you learn how to recognize what exactly is both the same but also different. I’m curious, how did CFDA strike that balance between stereotyping and trying to make those cultural distinctions clear? Because that is a very fine line.

Shannon Yip

It is a very fine line, and I don’t know if it’s ever really clear, because all we can do is discuss it with the students and explain. Whether they memorize it or they recall it as a discussion is to be seen, but we do try to bring it up.

Sometimes it feels like stereotyping a culture, but after many dances later and the various regional styles are experienced, one should see the differences within each ethnic group. The obvious difference is between folk and classical Han dancing. Classical styles usually reference dances performed for the aristocrats, the palaces, and the palace courts. For example, costume-wise, it’s the same ethnic group, so why are we not wearing the same outfit that we wore last time? It could be because it’s a different tribal group, among the Tibetan, for example. We live in different areas, even though our culture is very similar. But there are slight differences within each village, for example, and we bring that up.

Where people live dictates how they live. California has more comfortable weather and with more beaches, as in conditions in Hawaii. Where in the US do people have snow shovels, snow boots, rain boots, heavy rain coats ready at all times? Looking at the vast demography and topography of China, we can imagine the differences living in the grassland or close to the mountain range. Because some Tibetans live in the mountainous area, they carry their baskets/containers in a certain manner as they walk uphill – they crouch over like giving a toddler a piggyback ride. Thus, a typical dance movement reflects bending over. Tibetans have a sacred scarf, which is part of the religion, and given to guests, and thus, the embracing of this sacred item is embedded in the dance form. We learned this while we learned an aspect of a Tibetan dance.

This last Chinese New Year celebration by China, I noticed that they really focused on this display of different people, and they all dressed alike in the area. For example, the West Coast likes to wear leggings, thin leggings. But on the East Coast, people don’t wear thin leggings anymore, tight leggings. They start wearing wide pants. Then their difference in the focus. Or even the same thing like the first time I heard my father’s friend, who came from Texas, and the daughters spoke English perfectly, except how can they have a Texan accent? That kind of thing. People dress differently because of the environment that they come from: they still have a sweater, a jacket, or a blouse, but it’s different. So these are things we need to bring up. How San Francisco is different from New York, but also there are differences within China, it’s the same concept.

Gabrielle Hrung

So, when you make that analogy between China and America, then was it clear to your students?

Shannon Yip

I think it does if you bring it back to or relate it to their own personal life.

If you just say it out loud, it will go in one ear and out the other ear. If you say it enough, then some people might actually listen and recall. We did have students who, when they reached their high school days, were able to write about the different Chinese minorities as part of their high school essay or something like that. This is also the beginning where there’s more Asian teachers in the school system, and there was one teacher who had a lot of Chinese pictures around the room. A CFDA student was able to pick up, “Well, that’s Mongolian, but that’s Tibetan.” And the teacher goes, “Wow. How did you know that? Have you been there?” She [the student] goes, “No, I learned it from my dance company.”

That’s one example of how we reach out to the students, but again, to your question that you asked before: How does it continue? It’s hard to continue it because not everybody in our company is very attuned or astute to the fact that this needs to be said over and over and over. A lot of the professional teachers nowadays don’t even talk about that. They just teach you to dance, and they tell you where it came from and what your movement should look like, and you wear the outfit, and that’s about it. A lot of our non-Chinese parents go, “Oh yeah, they’re dancing Chinese.” But I’ve also seen schools with a person who said, “Oh, I’m gonna teach Chinese dance for my students.” We say, “Oh, that’s great. However, your outfit doesn’t match the dances you’re performing.” That tells me that you don’t know enough about your own culture. You’re stereotyping and stuff. Everybody says, “Oh, you know they’re wearing Chinese clothes, so they must be doing Chinese dance,” but those are things that I cringe about, because then they haven’t been taught. The next generation has not been taught. That’s how the continuous stereotyping concern for me comes about.

Gabrielle Hrung

As potential solutions or responses, do you feel like you or others from your generation have intervened to try and remedy that? Or what can be done to prevent that sort of shift towards stereotyping or incorrect performances?

Shannon Yip

It is where you’re coming from. It’s education. It’s being able to talk about it and to educate. We try to educate through dance, which means that you see the dancing. But are you listening to the announcement? The announcement would describe the dance and where it comes from. Our MC picked up on that. He would go, “Did you look at that costume? Did you know that the costume is not the same? Do you know why?” And that’d be part of his MC spiel before the dance.

The dance company’s mission is to continue the promotion and education of Chinese culture through the performing arts. Each production reflects the folk, classical, traditional, and contemporary aspects of modern Chinese culture. A description explaining the dance style, mood, and region to which the number represents is the usual habit of CFDA’s presentations. It is with positive thoughts that this mode assists in raising more than awareness amongst the general perception of the Chinese people and its culture and not the land itself.

There’s no end to it. It’s a forever work. As a generation migrates, as generations grow up, they’ll lose contact with however they were raised. I don’t know my two sons would ever talk the way I do, but I know they would understand where I’m coming from. They can speak to it more affirmatively, so it’s constant. Then, whether or not our students can speak to it.

My example earlier was that I have a group of students at CFDA, and they were able to write an article about ethnic minorities in China. But then the recent students? I don’t know. I don’t know if they can or cannot, because I haven’t heard any feedback. But I do know that a handful, more than a handful, of our dance students have taught Chinese folk dances when they go to college. There are more Chinese student organizations and they want to do Chinese dancing, or Chinese Lion dancing, for example. Our students were able to participate in that and help produce a dance or show, because our earlier students actually have experience in being the person who cued the dancers when you’re trying to perform. They have backstage experiences. They have sound experiences. Not only do they perform with us or for us, they are also part of us in terms of the production of a show, whether it’s for a stage, the community performance, a street performance, or a grand stage performance. That’s what we are aiming for, and we’re doing our best in terms of explaining the nuances, so they understand a little further.

Another example is bowing. Different people have different ways of bowing: the Mongolian bow one way, Chinese have probably centuries of ways of bowing. That’s changed over time though. There was one lady from Hong Kong. She goes around—she’s very Chinese—and she turns up and says, “The Chinese people bow this way.” I go. “No, that was only during one period of time.” That was only during one dynasty or one period or era. So we have generations of different ways of bowing. So no, that is not the way we bow all the time.

Gabrielle Hrung

Working with the parents and the experiences that they bring, have there been clashes sometimes? About how you’re teaching things, or the things that you teach the students/their kids? What did it look like to resolve those conflicts?

Shannon Yip

Most of the parents are pretty supportive. My parents’ generation and my generation of dancers who are from Hong Kong or China, they have more understanding of our culture than I would have, being American-born. I’m not exposed to it. So the American-born are not exposed to the culture that they learned back in China. Except I can’t say that as a flat statement, because China went through a session where they don’t want tradition anymore. They wanted everything Western.

A lot of the CFDA parents are either from Hong Kong or China, the earlier part of China. They have knowledge of Chinese people because they read it in their history books. They’re exposed to it. We, American-born Chinese, are not. We don’t have anything like that in a history book. We’re lucky people are still talking about the railroads. So we would rely on the parents to converse and say, “Is that true?” “Do you want to add anything on?” Or especially during my period, when I was still there, I would give the kids homework and say, “Ask your parents this.” Some parents said, “But how and where do they find out?” That was the curious part. “Where did they find out? How should they know? You know, you know they’re American-born so how should they know? They won’t have that in libraries.” Three parents said that to me, that they won’t have information about China in the library. And I go, “You, they should ask you, because you have more background information than the library, so whatever they get from you is already a plus.” The students can bring that back and say, “I know this from my parents,” and to me, that’s all I want to get out of them. But that’s me personally. After I left, I don’t know whether or not that’s continued. But that’s me personally, because I’m functioning as an American-born trying to learn Chinese culture.

A U.S. phrase used among schools: “education starts at home.” Some Chinese parents and shop owners do not understand that they too are diasporas. Parents are the enduring knowledge. It is so important, and whether or not it’s going on nowadays. I’m guessing 50% not, okay? But I know a lot of parents are involved and helpful. Hopefully, they can provide that to their child in terms of learning a Chinese dance, or just anything related to the dance. Culture-wise: martial arts or Chinese opera.

Gabrielle Hrung

Thinking more about our experiences as American-Born Chinese and thinking about the role that CFDA had in San Francisco’s Chinatown, having been involved with the dance company for so long—and I know you were also on the Board of Directors of the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco—what have been the most notable changes in Chinatown? What concerns but also hopes do you have for the neighborhood and the community?

Shannon Yip

The biggest change is people’s awareness that we need to learn our culture, whatever aspect of it. The second part of that is acceptance. Accepting it, because some people go back to stereotypes. Some people still, some of our/my American students, do that. For example, you shouldn’t use chopsticks with a plate. “Why not?” Because a cup goes with a saucer, a bowl goes with chopsticks. You could do it, and I’m sure a lot of people do it just because that’s the way their culture eats. But the concept needs to be understood, that you’ve been nagging me when I was little, that a cup and saucer go together. So you should know that a bowl and chopsticks go together as well. The awareness is coming around.

But according to my sons, they feel that it’s becoming a stereotype again. Being Asian is in, and my son starts going, “Being Asian is in, but what are you? Is being Chinese in?” And that stumped some of their friends. It’s like, “What do you mean? You know, isn’t it Chinese Asian?” I go, “Yeah, I said it’s a specific type of Asian.” If you’re specifically Chinese, then you should be proud of it. You’re specifically Vietnamese, and you should be proud and Vietnamese and say it. I see the struggle for more nuance in Chinatown.

The second, another part, is a political awareness. Being more active, not so passive as we were in the past. Standing up for what we think is right. Right now it’s supporting things that. This month is Pride Month, and there is more open support for it. It is a big step in accepting the fact that the LGBTQ+ community is part of our lives wherever we go. It is a big step. So the Cultural Center has embraced that, and Chinatown is also thinking that way.

Another example is when we walked around Chinatown during Chinatown Night Market, and one of my friends just noticed, “Oh, there’s no Taiwanese flag up here. How come there’s no Taiwanese flag? There’s an American flag, and there’s a China flag. Oh, there’s a Taiwanese flag.” And why is that? A lot of merchants, because in terms of making money, instead of going through Hong Kong then going to Taiwan, they’re going to China. They will now go directly to China to get their products. Well, they’re only supportive of China in that light, there’s a flag, China’s flag up there. Before, trade was going to Hong Kong, then going to China, and then from China going to Hong Kong and coming back. Because my father’s friends are in the import/export business, that’s what they have to do in order to get their products for an import/export business. They had to go through Hong Kong or Taiwan, which going back to China, who had most of the products and then became the zigzag, coming back. And now they’re able to go directly. So that’s a change: the geopolitical changes of today.

Gabrielle Hrung

A little bit more on the political side: Do you feel like this heightened awareness came about during or after COVID, with the rise of anti-Asian violence? And then now with the current administration’s tariffs?

Shannon Yip

Yeah, all of the above, all of the above, all the above because of different timing.

They affect one another, and it could go backwards as well. Going back to whether or not our CFDA is evolving and changing in the Chinatown community, we’re changing the thoughts of the parents for sure. We are supportive of the parents, but it’s hard for a nonprofit to continue to evolve because there’s so many professional teachers now coming from China. They all want to make a name for themselves, and none of them want to volunteer, because we’re totally a volunteer group. During the height of our company, of our productions, a lot of them were volunteering. So even if we gave them money, it was like one-fourth of the money they should be receiving. One fourth of the money they should be receiving. So they’ll make $100–I’m just throwing out a number because I’m not good with math—if they’re throwing $100, we’re probably going to give them $25, but their heart was in the right place.

It was also because these CFDA parents migrated. They want to see their children also embrace the culture, the right way to be involved. So we were lucky. During that time, we had such instructors. We had a couple who we called “Grandpa/Grandma,” and they are so giving, it’s ridiculous. We had to stop him from doing cartwheels. He was 60 years old, and he was doing cartwheels, and he would be teaching and showing the kids and explaining it to them, because he’s Cantonese-speaking. That’s another lucky thing. Not all of our teacher instructors are Cantonese-speaking, but he had such a connection with the students. That made a difference.

Being the first professional amateur Chinese folk dancing organization (group to company to association and back to company) focusing on accurate, non-stereotypical display of folk dances of the Chinese culture, we definitely ran into Chinese dancing organizations who challenged our delivery. Nowadays, with all these people coming over, migrating over, and they’re used to making a lot of money in China. One dancer would make $300 per show. He was doing one number, three times in the day. So guess how much he makes in one day? $900 at least. So that makes a difference for us. So I don’t know if we can sustain our company, because we can’t find the teachers.

I don’t know if the professional instructors from China or Taiwan nowadays are explaining the background to specific movements, or are they just teaching the dance steps and expect the dancers to perform as accurately as it is taught. The teachers we’re talking about, it’s not just like you come in here, teach me how to write two plus two equals four. You have to teach me the concept of two plus two. So most of the teachers can teach you two plus two equals four, but they can’t explain the concept of two plus two. So that’s the company’s challenge right now. So we have to rely, hopefully, on the students. But again, students can teach the dance, but there’s cons. There are particulars, at least, of the dance that they don’t quite understand. So it gets washed away. One example is that during the time of the Silk Road, there was a fusion of Persian and Chinese cultures, and a dance style came about. It’s named after one of the caves, the grottos: Dun Wong. That’s the Buddhist style, because of the Persian and the Chinese and the Buddhism. That’s because of the Silk Road and because of the Monkey King story. Bring sutras back to them. That’s a dance style that came out. It’s very unique. But if you don’t totally understand the form, the body form, then I can’t tell the difference whether or not you’re just bumping around or you’re actually standing in the statue stance that looks like Lin Feng. So things like that still need to be taught to the students. They remember the dance, but the specific “Why”? They haven’t cinched it yet.

Gabrielle Hrung

Thank you. I’m involved with Lion Dance in New York, and I think a lot about what responsibilities I have as a student while I’m learning these things from my teachers. I am curious about any particular message or advice or things that you feel students should really keep in mind as they go on with these cultural practices in the future? We’re all working it out and learning as we go, but how are you going to keep these traditions going? What does it mean to change with them and still maintain the history and the knowledge?

Shannon Yip

You know that the lion, the northern lion, and the southern lion are totally different. But nowadays, the trend is melting them together. Like, even though the dance you’re performing is more Southern style, you’re wearing Northern clothes.

So when you learn, when you continue lion dancing, make sure everybody understands the two differences. It’s like, this is the past, but this is what it is now. Changes are fine because it has always evolved. Cultures evolved, we evolved. But knowing the history makes the difference.

Gabrielle Hrung

I’m curious: in your view, how has Chinese American culture specifically evolved and changed? Specifically, in San Francisco?

Shannon Yip

One of them is language. I grew up speaking the country [Toisan] dialect, and then I eventually changed. Before we moved to Oakland, my brother’s Cantonese would be better than my Toisanese, and then within three years, for some reason, my Toisanese became better than his. You know, that kind of thing. My mother-in-law is Toisanese-speaking, but she said her dialect changed because she has to use more Cantonese, so her Toisanese is not as authentic, because she started infusing it with, unconsciously, a lot of Cantonese words. Whereas you have people who grew up with their parents and still speak the home dialect and can speak their home dialect fluently. But they don’t use it on the street because they don’t know who else understands them. I have four different pickleball friends who speak Toisanese, and they speak fluently. Better than my speaking right now, and they told me they didn’t grow up speaking Toisanese outside the house unless they ran into somebody who had learned the same dialect. So I thought that’s part of evolving right now: people recognizing the fact that they’re no longer ashamed. They can go out and they speak their Cantonese, their Toisan dialect, and somebody in Chinatown will understand. I don’t know about New York, but San Francisco has more and more people coming from the Toisan countryside.

A couple of times after dance class, we’re walking out on the street, and I turn around my head, and because…who are these people? I hear my Toisan dialect being spoken too. And these are young kids! These were young kids, teenagers.

Gabrielle Hrung

Oh! Okay, okay, wow.

Shannon Yip

Yeah, I was more “wowed” than you. The migration has changed because they’re coming out. They’re speaking it out.

That’s encouraging me, people like me. “Oh, I can use it more.” I do use it. I use Toisanese at school, at work, I should say, because I work at a bilingual school.

I have Cantonese-speaking students, I have Mandarin-speaking students. I have two Toisanese-speaking students. I have one student from Vietnam who speaks Teochew. But we all use Cantonese to speak to each other, and one time, my teachers, who are bilingual, a lot of them are Toisanese speakers. So we’re going around, and we call each other and another teacher responds in Toisanese. My students would hear it. Then some of them would come up to me and go, “My grandma talks like that.” It’s the validation that, outside their houses, there are people who talk like that, who still speak Toisanese. So I thought that’s one way of promoting education that it’s okay to speak in dialect, it’s good to speak Chinese. You know, when I was growing up, we had a lot of friends — my husband is one of them — who didn’t want to speak Chinese because there’s this embarrassment associated with it. But now it’s okay. So, the evolution, when we are talking about changes in Chinatown and changes in Chinese people, language is one of them. That’s one of the revolutions, the evolutions: they’re more willing to use the language.

Gabrielle Hrung

It’s great to hear about that shift towards wider acceptance of Chinese language and culture, because my mom said when she was growing up, there was so much pressure to assimilate into American society. But now, people are embracing their heritage more, and I am really curious about going forward, what sort of mindset will lead to. With a more open embrace of Chinese culture, how will that affect the Chinese community at large? And how about people’s understanding of what it means to be Chinese American? How can we notice that shift as time goes on?

Shannon Yip

I think right now, I’d like to see more confidence, in the younger generation of their culture. You are who you are, you are what you are right now. When my nephew was going to UC Berkeley, and he was part of the Asian Studies department. They had a forum which he invited me to speak as a panel speaker. There was a wide, wide variety of experiences on the panel: we had a fifth-generation Chinese American. There was a Japanese American who spoke fluent Japanese, who worked in a Japanese company. She said, it doesn’t matter how fluent she is, however Japanese she is, she was still seen as being lower class because she’s not authentic. Just that range alone.

The question, the concern was, what should they, the younger generation, do first? We came to a consensus: if you don’t speak the language, don’t worry about it, but learn the culture. So if you already know some of your culture, embrace it. If you want to do both culture and language, know that how much language you do know is already a plus. You should not feel degraded or invalidated because you only know how to say sik faan (食飯). Because that’s basically what a parent says to talk to us about. My girlfriend, who’s fluent in Toisanese, says she doesn’t have any other vocabulary outside of food because our parents only said things like, “Did you go to school? How was school? Did you eat? Time to eat? Did you shower?” Very basic stuff. They don’t ask you, “What’s the mathematical formula for this?” Because they don’t ask you those questions, you don’t have the vocabulary for it. Everybody asked me, “Oh, how is your Chinese, your Cantonese is so good?” No, my Cantonese is kindergarten-level, no, maybe up to second grade. My vocabulary wouldn’t go that far. So then the people who understand that, “You don’t know that much, after all.” [laughs] Just embrace the fact that’s all you know, but you don’t have to be embarrassed that you don’t know anything. Confidence. That’s why I say confidence is, to me, important.

Things turned out pretty good, because my nephew is pretty confident in who he is. He knows he’s of mixed blood. He knows which culture it’s coming from, and he knows how to respond to people who say things like, “But you don’t look so-and-so.” Then he would have a comeback. I forgot what his comeback was. But he knows his culture. He knows it’s time for a Russian thing, and time for a Chilean thing and a Chinese thing. Now he’s learning about Vietnamese culture, because his wife is Vietnamese.

Shannon Yip

Yeah, and our grand nephew. His older son knows how to drum the lion dance. He knows how to do the tail, because when the front of the lion would bow, he would drop to his leg. So basically, the head goes down and he would drop. My grandnephew does that when he plays around with his dad, lion dancing. So we’re embracing that.

Gabrielle Hrung

Thank you. Those are all the questions I had. Did you want to add more about Chinatown or the dance company or the next generation of Asian Americans?

Shannon Yip

I just hope that they definitely continue to embrace themselves and understand that the future depends on them—on you guys—and it’s a hard life being an ethnic person in America. That you have to continue. It’s a continual fight. Sometimes you don’t feel like you’re fighting because your school is 90% Asian, so you don’t feel like there’s anything that you need to fight about. But once you walk out of that area, you may notice. I’m using the word “may.” I can only say that because my husband, had a friend who had an aha-moment because he grew up in an area with a large Asian population. Then he lived in a neighborhood that’s so different from San Francisco and the Asian population there. Later, you may realize things like, “I think I think I was bullied,” or “I think they just put me down,” that kind of thing. He just had an aha-moment. It’s a continual fight, that I can say. Be aware and know these facts

Gabrielle Hrung

For sure, and especially right now, that feels really important with the crackdown on DEI. To emphasize what it means to embrace what makes you you in the US, and to think about geography and where you are. I think that’s also a big part of the Not Fade Away project, and trying to learn about what it’s like to be Asian, not just in California and New York, but also places like Arizona, where I didn’t know that there were so many Chinese people. But I know that you guys have family there as well.

Shannon Yip

About the Chinese in Arizona, if you eliminate all the immigrants, the recent immigrants, the Chinese Americans there are very traditional. They think very, very traditionally, yet they’re very entrenched with the white culture there. They’re very traditional, because that’s how they were raised. So they don’t see it inside. Then there were the newcomers, the new immigrants from China. I’m not sure how it affected them, but I do know there’s a lot of newer immigrants in Arizona too. I don’t know if they’ve fallen for the Chinese stereotype. I say this because one of our uncles, he is younger than us, and really plays up the stereotype. To further his Chinese restaurant. He knows he is in Arizona, he knows he is Chinese, but he uses it—the stereotyping of Chinese people—to make sure he’s not trampled on and his continual services.

Gabrielle Hrung

That’s really, really interesting, because I do think that’s an important feature of a lot of diasporic Chinese communities, especially in Chinatown. What does it mean to sort of lean into these stereotypes about Chinese people? But that’s for your own survival or success in this new country. Then as a result, what does that mean for our understanding of heritage and what is passed on to the kids and grandkids?

Shannon Yip

Yeah. I think the keyword that you said is survival. How do we survive? I’m going to use you, for example. How are you surviving in Germany, right?

Gabrielle Hrung

[laughs] Yeah.

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