I’m in Chinatown. It’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m scratching this on a notepad while a majiang game rages at the table beside me. From this angle I can see the guy sitting East is cheating. A table away from the cheater are two kids in head to toe Nike talking in low Toisan over a sea of empty Tsingtao bottles. Business, probably. I remember when you could smoke in this place. If you were well known you could get a pack of Marlboros brought to your table in a fresh ashtray with a book of plain white matches. Wasn’t that long ago, I remember. Back when Chinatown was Chinatown. Not the thing it is now. I wrote this play in response to an email I received from an MP in British Columbia. The email itself was in response to a petition I had signed in opposition to Bill C-333, which attempted to quietly sweep a number of issues (including the head tax and exclusion act) under a decidedly cheap rug. The email accused the CCNC (who initiated the petition) of being liars and media whores with no real basis for complaint. It was libelous and demeaning towards Chinese Canadians. And I took offense. The first draft took 5 days to write. Of that draft, I think only the title remains the same. The last 3 years have been spent rewriting and reshaping, distilling and imagining. I want to make clear that lady in the red dress is not historical record. It’s not a documentary. It is not a pinpoint accurate recreation of the Chinese-Canadian struggle for redress. I’m not a historian… I’m a dramatist. This is a play. And a fantasy at that.  This play has been developed under the auspices of Factory Theatre’s CrossCurrents Festival, PTC’s Playwrights Colony, Toronto Arts Council and fu-GEN Theatre Company. My thanks to Ken Gass, Don Hannah, Jean Yoon, Guillermo Verdecchia and Nina Lee Aquino whose guidance and support have been instrumental to the development of this work. I’m in their debt. I should leave this place. The cheater won his game, and the Toisan kids have left. It’s quiet now. The owner moves dirt about the floor with the same broom he used 10 years ago when I found this joint. When he was newly fixing the tri-gram mirror above the door. A ba gua. He said it was to protect the place from sha qi, poison arrows and evil spirits. He smiled at the jade necklace I was wearing… my own personal talisman. Back when those things still meant something. When Chinatown was still Chinatown.  Not the thing it is now. -David Yee, January 2009