Mr. Gay Canada chats with Sad Mag http://www.sadmag.ca/news/2014/02/mr-gay-canada-chats-with-sad-mag/

Mr. Gay Canada chats with Sad Mag

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Shannon Waters | Leave a reply

Chris­tepher Wee, Mr. Gay Canada 2014 is an ener­getic and amaz­ingly pos­i­tive guy. He thinks of him­self pri­mar­ily as an edu­ca­tor and uses his suc­cess in mod­el­ing, act­ing and pageantry as a vehi­cle for his activism. Shan­non Waters caught up with Chris­tepher to talk about his new title, what he thinks about the Olympics and what he plans on doing next.

We’d be more than happy to high five Chris­tepher for diver­sity!

Sad Mag: Who are you?

Chris­tepher Wee: I’m just a col­lec­tive con­tri­bu­tion of every­thing since my childhood—my par­ents, teach­ers, edu­ca­tion, upbring­ing, the things I’ve learned. That’s who I am today. And every time I expe­ri­ence some­thing, like this com­pe­ti­tion and the peo­ple I meet — well, you grow a lit­tle more every day. I live life just as a nor­mal human being, doing the best I can, being a human­i­tar­ian. I’m going through life being the best human I can. Chris­tepher Wee is a col­lec­tive being of all of the pos­i­tive things that have gone through my life.

SM: Tell me about the Mr. Gay Canada competition.

CW: I didn’t actu­ally know there was a Mr. Gay Canada. Since I was young, I’ve always loved pageants. I always watched them with my mom—Ms. Uni­verse, Ms. World, and all that. I was watch­ing pageants on YouTube and I’d always known these ladies have a plat­form for char­ity and I won­dered if I could do some­thing like that. You see, as a teacher, I knew I could influ­ence my stu­dents but the range kind of stops out­side of your class or your school. I real­ized as an actor my voice was more pow­er­ful and I could influ­ence more through my TV shows or as the spokesper­son for a par­tic­u­lar cause. I watched Ms. Amer­ica and the win­ner, you know, was of East Indian descent and the run­ner up of Chi­nese descent, and I thought, wow, what a change! What a cel­e­bra­tion of diver­sity! And then I watched Ms. World and I wondered…so I Googled Mr. World. And I found out they do have one and I was kind of blown away. So I won­dered, do they have a Mr. Gay World? And they do. So I applied and the next thing I knew, I was in the Mr. Gay Canada pageant. I didn’t really expect any­thing of it—I thought I could use it as a plat­form to do what I wanted to do. I thought it would be a good place because the press would be there and lots of dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions would be there and I could make con­nec­tions and net­work within the com­mu­nity to do what I wanted to do.

SM: And you came out on top!

CW: I came out on top! I’m the first Asian win­ner of Mr. Gay Canada. I’m also the first com­peti­tor to win all of the acco­lades. I won Best National Costume—the win­ner wears their cos­tume at the Mr. Gay World com­pe­ti­tion. I won with a Chief Jus­tice cos­tume (from the Supreme Court of Canada). I thought it would be a good cos­tume because Canada is so pro­gres­sive in its human rights; we’ve always been a leader in that, that it would be great. You know, instead of the usual, like a Moun­tie or a hockey player. The Supreme Court Jus­tice cos­tume speaks to a national phi­los­o­phy, a belief behind what we’re striv­ing for in the world. I didn’t expect to win—there were so many other amaz­ing costumes—but I did.

I also won Mr. Con­ge­nial­ity. All of the guys were so great so the fact that I was voted Mr. Con­ge­nial­ity was really touching.

And then there was People’s Choice award. I was a bit wor­ried about that because, hav­ing just come back to Canada, I didn’t think I would have Van­cou­ver or BC vot­ing for me. My group of friends is mainly in Asia so I mes­saged them to tell them I was a final­ist in Mr. Gay Canada and asked them to vote for me and to get the word out and I was over­whelmed. My Face­book account had maybe 800 or 900 peo­ple on it and then every day it would increase by 100, 150. And I received mes­sages and mes­sages. I had so many mes­sages from Asia, from strangers, from peo­ple I didn’t even know. And then I received mes­sages from peo­ple in Saudia Ara­bia and Venezuela and all over the world—messages of sup­port say­ing, “You rep­re­sent us,” “You are our voice,” “You are our hope.”

Like I said before, I try to live my life just as a human being. I’m not doing this because I’m Asian, to ben­e­fit the Asian com­mu­nity, or even to ben­e­fit the LGBTQ com­mu­nity. I’m doing it because it will ben­e­fit all humankind. So it really hit me when I real­ized that I am a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for people.

SM: So now that you’ve got the title and the plat­form, what are you look­ing to do with it?

CW: My plat­form has always been with youth because I teach.  In Canada, we have the Gay/Straight Alliance and in BC, we have Out in Schools. But I’d like to build on that—I think we need sup­port pro­grams in every school. I bet every school has an annual club and every school has a stu­dent coun­cil and now, pretty much every school has an anti-bullying cam­paign with the pink T-shirt day. So why not make a club in every school that cel­e­brates diversity?

I would like to start High Five Diver­sity. Lit­tle kids are taught to high five when they do some­thing good—it has a pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tion. The word diver­sity also has pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tions and lacks the stigma of, say, tol­er­ance or inclu­sive­ness. Instead of say­ing, ‘Let’s be inclu­sive,’ let’s cel­e­brate our diver­sity. Let’s learn from our diver­sity, let’s edu­cate each other on our dif­fer­ences and let’s cel­e­brate them. Diver­sity should be a part of every­day life. And I think we’re at the point where we can make that shift and make diver­sity a part of edu­ca­tion and let kids feel safe and secure and be who they are.

I’ve started Hi5Diversity on Twitter—@WeeChristepher and #hi5diversity—but I want to see it in schools. I’d like to cre­ate a Face­book page as well, where peo­ple, espe­cially kids, can upload art­work or poems or what­ever that cel­e­brate diversity.

In the mean­time, I’m in touch with GSA and Pride Edu­ca­tion and Out in Schools, to see how they can use my sash for their cause. Because this is some­thing that I want to do long term and a year is just going to fly by. After a year, when you’re no longer Mr. Gay Canada, how loud is your voice? I want to spend this year being very active.

Being a role model is top on Christepher’s list.

As soon as I got back from Whistler, I emailed Tim Steven­son (Van­cou­ver City Coun­cil mem­ber) in Sochi and told him, “I’m the new Mr. Gay Canada, I want to see how I can con­tribute.” I didn’t think he would respond. But within hours, Mau­reen Dou­glas responded and said, “Tim got your email, he’s really busy right now but he’s inter­ested in get­ting in touch with you when he gets back from Sochi.” So I’m really excited about that!

SM: Let’s talk about the Olympics. Have you been watch­ing them?

CW: I watched a bit of the open­ing cer­e­mony yes­ter­day with friends. One of my friends asked me a really good ques­tion. He asked me if I sup­port the Olympics. I said I do sup­port the Olympics and the ath­letes, espe­cially the ath­letes. Because they have worked so hard and this is a time for them to show their excel­lence, their unity and what they’ve worked so hard for. This is some­thing we need to cel­e­brate. But I don’t sup­port what’s going on in Rus­sia. Those are two dif­fer­ent things. I actu­ally think the fact that the Olympics are being held there is fan­tas­tic as pre­vi­ously there was talk of a boy­cott. I don’t think boy­cotting is the right route, nec­es­sar­ily, espe­cially in this case. Here you have the global media on site at the loca­tion of hor­ri­ble repres­sion. What bet­ter way to draw atten­tion, to get it out into the world, than to have the world’s ath­letes there and the press that goes with that? Maybe the world uni­fied and all of those voices uni­fied can change a few politi­cians’ minds, can change the coun­try. Maybe. But at least it’s bet­ter than hav­ing a boy­cott. I think when we have social issues, they need to be addressed and out there. We need to build aware­ness for it and build a dis­course in every coun­try for it.

Some­times I think we kind of for­get that our pio­neers got us where we are today. That’s why I can sit here and have that free­dom to say what I want and to wear a sash that says Mr. Gay Canada. We’ve moved a long ways but that doesn’t mean we can take it for granted. Depend­ing on who is in power, things can regress very quickly. I don’t think we can take it for granted at all, that free­dom, and I think we need to be very aware of what is hap­pen­ing with our global neigh­bours because what’s hap­pen­ing to them could come around and affect us. And these days, with social media, we are so inter­con­nected that we can make a dif­fer­ence in each other’s countries.

SM: Have you seen some of the ath­letes at the Olympics sport­ing LGBTW sup­port­ive gear?

CW: It gives me goose­bumps, all the way to my head. It’s excit­ing. That’s why I said; we need to have pres­ence there. Those rainbows—the world knows what the rain­bow means, what it rep­re­sents. And they know what pink rep­re­sents and what the red rib­bon rep­re­sents. We all know those sym­bols and when they see them, peo­ple make that con­nec­tion. That’s why I think it’s great that we’re not boy­cotting the Olympics. We should cel­e­brate what these ath­letes are doing. We shouldn’t con­done what’s going on in Russia—we need to speak up—but the ath­letes are there to show their ded­i­ca­tion and their excel­lence. They’re great ambas­sadors. It just goes to show that we can be united and maybe we can get a few politi­cians to change their mind­sets so that our broth­ers and sis­ters in Rus­sia can have the free­dom to live. Just the right to live and not be beaten up or spat on. I think it’s about more than just the LGBTQ com­mu­nity. It’s also about bul­ly­ing. Because if it can hap­pen to the LGBTQ com­mu­nity, it can hap­pen to other com­mu­ni­ties too. Who­ever is liv­ing in a coun­try and is iden­ti­fied as not belong­ing or fit­ting in. spe­cific criteria.

SM: You’ve moved around a lot—tell me about your trav­els and your time in Asia.

CW: I trav­eled a lot as a kid. My par­ents made a point of tak­ing us on a trip pretty much every sum­mer. It ‘s some­thing I’ve always been inter­ested in: trav­el­ing and see­ing dif­fer­ent cul­tures. When I left Van­cou­ver and went to Asia, I was teach­ing Inter­na­tional Bac­calau­re­ate Art and I wanted to go and study Asian art to be able to incor­po­rate Asian art and art his­tory into my pro­gram. So I took a leave of 6 months…that then turned into years. While I was in Asia, I was dis­cov­ered for mod­el­ing. And then the mod­el­ing took off and led to TV.TV took off and led to film and I found a whole new exis­tence I’d never thought about it. I found that what I could do with it was amaz­ing. As an edu­ca­tor, you always have that inner drive to influ­ence and have an impact. I know that kind of sounds cliché, like world peace, but I think that’s the way I was brought up. It’s been my men­tal­ity since I was young: to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence and to be a role model.  So when I found a bit of fame and found that I could use my voice to impact so many, it drove me to become even more involved.

SM: It sounds a bit as if you saw mod­el­ing and act­ing as a means to an end, so to speak. Was that always how you saw it or did that change over time?

CW: It was that way from the start. At first, I was doing my art research and doing a bit of mod­el­ing and it was good, the money was good. But when you’re mod­el­ing, peo­ple don’t really know your name—they asso­ciate you with a brand. I knew peo­ple rec­og­nized me and there was an ele­ment of celebrity there but it wasn’t until film, when my name was out there and peo­ple started say­ing, “That’s Chris­tepher Wee,” that’s when I real­ized that they really knew me. That’s when I started to do a lot of inter­views. I’d done inter­views before as a model, but these were much more inti­mate and I real­ized that I had a lot of options. Then I started to be approached by local news­pa­pers to write as a guest jour­nal­ist about social issues. I was approached by Teen Mag­a­zine! Char­i­ties would ask me to just show up to their events. Some peo­ple would get really excited about going to the fancy par­ties and stuff but to me it’s just a job. I go to the shoot because that’s my job. I’m in a TVshow because that’s my job and I want to do the best I can at every job I have. I don’t think, “Oh, I’m famous, I’m bet­ter than you,” because I’m still Chris­tepher Wee. Before I started doing any of this and who I am now, it’s still Chris­tepher Wee. Noth­ing has changed in the core. But now I have the abil­ity to use my name to do some­thing and so I’m going to use it.

We wish Chris­tepher luck in the future! With a smile like that, how could he lose?

SM: Do you have any par­tic­u­lar role mod­els for your activism?

CW: So many! So many peo­ple have got­ten us to where we are today. Peo­ple in sci­ence and arts and lan­guages and tech­nol­ogy, human­i­tar­i­an­ism and social work—it’s taken peo­ple in all of those areas to get us to where we are today.

I love quotes. When I find a quote that really speaks to me, I Google who wrote it or said it to learn about them. I find out about their con­tri­bu­tions and so I’m always find­ing new role models.

Chris Mor­ris­sey of the Rain­bow Refugee Asso­ci­a­tion, was at the Mr. Gay Canada Com­pe­ti­tion. She spoke to us about refugee issues and inter­na­tional LGBTQ issues. That’s some­one who has done amaz­ing work! And Ellen DeGeneres or even Obama, those are the peo­ple that I hope to emu­late. They’re my ah-ha! moments. I’m hop­ing that soon I will be able to be someone’s ah-ha! moment. I think I’m get­ting there, some of my for­mer stu­dents have told me I’ve inspired them. I told my stu­dents that I was a final­ist in Mr. Gay Canada. At first, I didn’t but even­tu­ally it got out – and they all gave me their support!

I think if I can leave some kind of impres­sion on peo­ple, they way that all of these other peo­ple have left an impres­sion on me, that’s a wor­thy goal. If every­one can leave ah-ha! moments for oth­ers, instead of neg­a­tive impacts, I think our world would be so dif­fer­ent. In terms of what’s going on in Rus­sia right now, peo­ple are spread­ing these videos of vio­lence against LGBTQ peo­ple around, try­ing to raise aware­ness. But some peo­ple who see those videos won’t be edu­cated – they may go the oppo­site way and think, if oth­ers are doing it, why can’t I? I think there are two sides to the activism coin – why not be on the pos­i­tive side?

SM: So it sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate as Mr. Gay Canada this year. Do you know what comes next?

CW: Well, Mr. Gay World is com­ing up in August so I have to pre­pare for that. It’s not just about your good looks or nice body—it’s about what you bring to the orga­ni­za­tion and what you can do. The past Mr. Gay World’s have been amaz­ing ambas­sadors for their platforms—they’re inspi­ra­tions. The win­ner for this year will have big shoes to fill so I’m work­ing towards that, towards mak­ing the judges know that I’m doing this for more than glam­our. I’ve done that, I know what it’s like to have celebrity and to be in the papers. It’s irrel­e­vant to me. It’s what you do behind the name and the title that mat­ters. So I want to be really pre­pared for that and, regard­less of the results, I know that, being on the world stage, my voice will be big­ger. And if I win? Wow, that’s another sash that will launch me to a dif­fer­ent level in terms of what I can do. I’m excited! I’m not get­ting my hopes up that I can win because, regard­less, just mak­ing it there to the world stage is a win and it already gives what I want to do a big­ger platform.

You can fol­low Chris­tepher Wee on Twit­ter (@ChristepherWee) and on Face­book. He also holds the Twit­ter han­dle @WeeChristepher as a plat­form for his hi5Diversity program.

Christepher's SAD MAG Interview.

Thank-you Shannon Waters for taking the time to chat with me.

http://www.sadmag.ca/news/2014/02/mr-gay-canada-chats-with-sad-mag/ … 

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