Rainbow Chan | Ancestral Songs: Revitalizing Weitou Culture

Rainbow Chan is an award-winning vocalist, producer, and multi-disciplinary artist. Since moving to Australia with her family in 1996, Rainbow has built a celebrated career while tracing her maternal roots to Weitou people—one of Hong Kong’s indigenous groups who settled in the region prior to British colonization in 1898. Her creative practice, deeply informed by ideas of homeland and diaspora, has earned her recognition as one of Australia’s most innovative contemporary musicians. In this episode, Rainbow shares how she weaves her maternal Weitou heritage into song and performance, reflects on what her mother’s heritage language has meant for her identity and its role in broader cultural revitalization, and discusses which Cantopop artists from her childhood continue to inspire her practice today. Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000 is now on view at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver’s Chinatown until May 2026. Monthly curator tours are available in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin. To learn more or book tickets, visit https://www.chinesecanadianmuseum.ca/.