Stephen Yan is a national treasure. Being Canadian meant that you had a distinct memory of watching his popular CBC series WOK WITH YAN, a daytime staple which ran for over 15 years and 500+ episodes, both educating the world on the bright flare of Cantonese cuisine, while also entertaining the masses with his hilarious puns and comedic showmanship.
His fame brought him to U.S. and Asia, appearing on Late Night with Letterman and Live with Regis and Kelly even. Things have been quiet for the Celebrity Chef (before Celebrity Chefs were really a thing) and Restauranteur since the mid-’90s. Occasionally, I’d find myself scouring Facebook and Google for updates on his whereabouts. What happened to this legend?
RetroKid, founded by Steve Gaskin, are known for their creative licensed collaborations with nostalgic Canadian institutions. They did the work and somehow via a connection, located Yan, now 85-years-old and living in an earned quiet life in Burnaby. The clothier is launching a new collaboration showcasing some of Yan’s most famous catchphrases and ‘Wok Puns’, available now and we had the rare opportunity to chat with Yan in-person ahead of his WOK TALK LIVE! in-conversation at The Royal Theatre with Pay Chen this weekend.
We had the honour of chatting with Yan and Gaskin about their unique and rare collaboration. Yan sheds some light what his retirement life looks like now in Burnaby, BC, reflecting on life then and today.
We ask Gaskin, what did Stephen Yan mean to him as a Chinese-Canadian kid growing up in Toronto.
Gaskin: He meant a lot, right? So there’s a lot of, back when I was growing up, I’m an ’80s kid, and I was a latchkey kid. So my parents immigrated, they went to work, they dropped me off at my grandparents’ house. The only representation I had as a young mixed-race Chinese boy was Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or the guy from Bloodsport. They were all unattainable.
Stephen means so much because of just the connection I had with the show. Even as a six-year-old. But you know from a personal level, my gung-gung (maternal grandfather) who took care of me, who’s no longer here, he had broken English. And the only way we were able to connect was through his show. So he loved to cook and I would sit down with him right next to his La-Z-Boy, and we’d just watch the show and laugh. And you know, it was that connection point for us.
MWW: It’s crazy how we had a communal collective experience. That’s my recollection too of summers with my ye-ye (paternal grandfather) too. Every summer, I’d just stay with him. It would be on around 2 o’clock in the afternoon or something like that.
Stephen‘s been out of the public eye for quite some time. I myself would search him on Google, finding very little info anywhere. I remember looking on Facebook, hoping to see a profile. What was the process like getting in touch with him finally?
Gaskin: So this was six and a half years of trying to basically, one, find him, see if he’s alive, see if he’s okay. And then how do we even broker this deal to actually celebrate everything that he’s accomplished, right? And doing that directly with an 85-year-old guy is extremely difficult. He doesn’t have an agent, there’s nobody in-between. But we’re just really fortunate that we were able to just somehow in six years find somebody that was connected to him. They gave us the passing grade of like, ‘Okay, yeah, you’re doing it for the right reasons, this is not just about making a cool t-shirt. This is truly celebrating the legacy.”.
MWW: What’s the essence of the collection? What was the one thing you were trying to capture?
Gaskin: We were very intentional with our designs. There’s a lot of cultural sensitivities as an Asian community that we need to be aware of. If you combine an image of Stephen Yan plus a certain ‘Wok Pun’, it doesn’t sit right. With the sensitivities that are just in our world today, we were hyper-aware of that. So we had to pair certain images with specific quotes that didn’t touch those kind of points, yet truly celebrated who he was.
So for us, the design DNA was food, but how do we celebrate that? It was humour. How do we celebrate that? And then also, the joy – the joyous feeling we all got when that intro came on and they’re like, oh, 30 minutes of my life! This is gonna be great!
MWW: I am little disappointed there is nothing branded ‘WONDER POWDER‘, a magical thickening substance Yan used often in his cooking on WOK WITH YAN – ingrained in my mind forever.
Gaskin: Well, we had a concept to do like a Wonder Powder package design, right? Do you know the ingredients of Wonder Powder? This is gonna blow your mind!
MWW: So I thought it was just corn starch. Was it tapioca starch or corn?
Gaskin: Both! He mixed both of them! But he did that because he wanted the sauce to be a little less clumpy and a little bit more shinier. So when you’re pouring-out sweet and sour, it looks good on camera.
MWW: What’s your favourite piece in the RetroKid x Stephen Yan collection?
Gaskin: My favorite piece is that Good Fortune hoodie (below, left in photo), just because of the colours. So obviously we went yellow-black because of Bruce Lee, Game of Death, right? It has that kind of Asian feel to it. Stephen Yan was the only chef that actually had a live audience. And that live audience was willing to participate in eating the food afterwards, right? And you know, at the end of every episode, he would sit down, share food, but then break-open a fortune cookie. And everyone would be like, ‘Oh my God, what is he doing?’. And he’d have to explain, what’s inside the fortune cookie, and then he would actually speak Cantonese to like explain it.
Yeah, that’s appealing to my culture, and then also the kind of Western culture. But that Good Fortune hoodie is my favourite, because it’s also inspirational. So you break open the fortune cookie, and you share that joy. But really the message is, it’s really wok’s inside that counts.
MWW: Now 85-years-old, Yan is looking well, sporting a full head of gray hair. I call this out, hearing that he requested a hotel with a swimming pool as swimming is part of his fitness routine. I am his last interview of his Toronto press tour, him powering through back-to-back apperances and chats all day long. Not an easy task for anyone, let alone someone his age.
Yan: I swim, I do all the crazy things.
MWW: What does your typical day look like?
Yan: A typical day is, I wave on camera. Yes. And then in the morning, I get up. I make myself happy. How? Open my eyes, I can see. I don’t need glasses. Oh, I can see the light. And then I can breathe, no problem. And then I go to washroom, I can pee!
MWW: Are you still actively cooking, or do you like to going out to eat more?
Yan: No, no, no, cooking is more secondary. I just go out to eat. So that’s my day, you know, then I go swimming. You know, 50 laps.
MWW: 50 laps? That’s incredible.
Yan: Yeah, it takes about an hour to do that. Then afterwards, I do Karate. And I have a second, going on third black belt.
MWW: Wow, that’s incredible. How long have you been doing Karate for?
Yan: I’ve been doing it for about 20 years.
MWW: That’s how you stay sharp!
Yan: I believe that you have to keep on moving. You have only one life. Up to you.
MWW: That’s the thing. My mom tells me that. That once you start slowing down, you’re mentally going to get slower.
Yan: That’s right. Like a door. The door is slowing down, then it’s squeaky. And then sometimes it will go rusty. And then it won’t open anymore. But if it’s going, all the doors are swinging back. There you are. That’s why they call them swingers!
MWW: So you are known for your aprons and their witty puns. How did you narrow it down to the items we see in this collection with Retrokid?
Yan: How many aprons do you think I had?
MWW: Well, you did 500 episodes, I know that!
Yan: More than that!
MWW: More than that? So one apron per episode? 500+?
Yan: Yeah, one per episode. Never repeated.
MWW: But what was your favourite one?
Yan: They’re all my favourite, otherwise I wouldn’t use them. I love it. Just like all your children, you know. You might spoil them, but you know, you should treat them the same. Otherwise, it’s hurtful.
MWW: So the you from ’80s and ’90s that we got to know – what’s different between Stephen Yan back then and Stephen Yan now?
Yan: Getting old. But you learn, you’re wiser. You get older, you’re wiser. Because you learn… how do you call it? Acceptance. You accept people the way they are. Because you have seen a lot. One rice can feed 10,000 people. We eat rice, Americans, they eat bread – all kinds of bread – white bread, brown bread, whatever, there are many ways of doing it.
The world is changing. You know, you’ve heard about Asian Fusion. See, there’s a new thing coming out, not new, but just modified, that’s all. You just have to learn all those things. It’s very important in life.
You have to accept things. All things have changed. Even the culture. In the old days, the Chinese culture has now changed. You can get upset because it’s all changed, or leave it, let it be, like The Beatles’ song.
There’s a Chinese saying, ‘You can watch people catch your fish. You’re jealous. hostile. You could also go home, buy a fishing net and do it yourself.’,
MWW: Of all your recipes, the one that stands out the most in my memory is the Bird’s Nest. Say you’re cooking for yourself or whoever it is – have your adapted any of your recipes to the times?
Yan: Sure, you’re learning all the time. The Nest is something very simple.
MWW: Simple?! That looks like so much labour!
Yan: You build a house, you have to take time right? You don’t have to use the taro root or whatever, you can use noodles! So you get the noodles, put them in and then you don’t have to cut the taro up.
MWW: That’s genius.
Okay, so for people of my generation – always in a hurry – we don’t always have time to cook. Let’s say it’s been a long day, you get home, you want to make something in five to ten minutes. What’s your go-to comfort food?
Yan: Eat a salad.
MWW: Salad? I’m shocked!
Yan: Why?
MWW: I was expecting a noodle or rice.
Yan: No, no, no. The Chinese also have cold cuts too! You can use those.
MWW: Right. True.
Yan: So, you know, respect the food. The food you cook. Cooking is love. When you’re cooking for somebody, you have to consider what that person likes to eat. Is he allergic to anything? How much can eat? Can he take the spicy food? All those things. And then everything has to be balanced. So a lot of love goes into it. For the people who love to cook, they’re better people, in my opinion!
MWW: Why is it that you never really made Dim Sum on WOK WITH YAN, even though it’s such a big part of Cantonese cuisine?
Yan: I also do Dim Sum. But I didn’t do Dim Sum on the show because there’s nothing to talk about or show. Very quickly, you can get the Har Gow done. You have to make the skin, you know, use the knife. You do it and then get it out. That’s just too quick. You need something that’s going to entertain people for an hour. So you have to talk about it. That’s why you need to stir-fry it. Because then slowly you cut them down crosswise, or according to the grain. All those things, there’s a reason. So you have to talk about it. Because you have to consider all those things. You don’t want to leave the audience half-asleep. You’re gonna wake them up, so wake them up! How? You cannot yell at them, so you tell them a joke. If they don’t laugh, you laugh!
MWW: What are your impressions of Toronto today?
Yan: I cannot take the traffic. I come here once in a while, but I don’t think I can live here. When I’m in Burnaby, I can look out my place and see the park. It’s an amazing garden, like being in Europe. And then you have a trail to walk, you know, and the people are nice.
More on the Retrokid x Stephen Yan event and collection here.
Retrokid, the Toronto-based brand, cherished for its nostalgic pop culture apparel, is thrilled to announce a world premier collaboration with Canadian-Chinese culinary legend, Stephen Yan. Known for his iconic show “Wok with Yan,” Yan captivated audiences for over 15 years with his entertaining and educational approach to Chinese cooking, making the cuisine accessible and beloved across Canada. This special collection combines Retrokid’s signature nostalgic style with the vibrant spirit of Yan’s enduring
legacy, offering fans a fashionable tribute to one of Canada’s most cherished culinary figures.
Yan’s show not only introduced audiences to the art of Chinese cooking, but also made it fun with his humour and catchy phrases. Yan’s charismatic style and his famous “wok and roll” antics have left a lasting impression on multiple generations. Retrokid’s limited edition Wok with Yan officially licensed collection includes a variety of apparel items designed to resonate with fans old and new. Yan’s cheeky quotes come to life with phrases like “Wok on By,” “Wok on the Wild Side,” “It’s Woks Inside That Counts,” and more. Must have pieces from the collection include:
● Wok & Roll T-Shirt – A vibrant t-shirt celebrating Wok with Yan’s playful spirit. ($45.00)
● Wok On By T-Shirt – A timeless piece reflecting the charm of Wok with Yan. ($45.00)
● Cooking Aprons – Yan’s trademarked “pun” aprons for aspiring chefs and fans.
● Accessories – Tote bags, fridge magnets, button pins, and chopsticks, all featuring the
distinctive Wok with Yan branding.
“We are incredibly excited to collaborate with a cultural icon like Stephen Yan,” said Steve Gaskin, Owner and Co-Founder of Retrokid. “His show was a huge part of many people’s childhoods, including my own. This collection is our way of honouring his legacy and sharing it with a new generation.” The latest collection is a continuation of Retrokid’s approach to creating nostalgic apparel that celebrates beloved Canadian pop culture. Not only did Retrokid work with local Canadian artists, this collection is printed and finished in Toronto, Canada. The brand has previously collaborated with notable names such as Degrassi, Big Comfy Couch, CBC, Flintstones, Mr. Dressup, and Sesame Street, capturing the hearts of fans with its high-quality, memory-evoking merchandise.
Stephen Yan expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration saying, “Working with Retrokid has been a delightful experience. It’s wonderful to see how the essence of my cooking show can be transformed into such fun and fashionable items. I hope this collection brings back fond memories and inspires new ones.”
To mark the launch of this exciting collection, Retrokid and Wok with Yan will host an exclusive event in Toronto on Saturday, August 10 from 10:00am – 1:00pm at the Royal Theatre (608 College St). Fans will have the opportunity to meet Stephen Yan, during an in-person conversation, moderated by lifestyle and food expert, Pay Chen and purchase limited-edition merchandise. Tickets will be made available soon!
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