125. Asian Heritage Month Events

For a quick look at free Asian Heritage and other May events, click on: www.TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com. After scrolling down past the pictures, make sure the far left window under “Toronto Multicultural Calendar” says “Upcoming” for our printable calendar.Click on arrow.

In addition to Buddha’s Birthday celebrations, there’s the Annual Education Roundtable & 9^th Annual Asian Heritage Month Lecture. Here’s a chance to find out why Asian students are doing so well in Toronto.  The Roundtable is on Tuesday, May 10 at OISE, 252 Bloor Street West. It’s on “Enlarging the Educational Discourse: Lessons for Canada from Educational Reforms in Hong Kong, China and India.” A reception follows from 6-7:30pm.  

Look for the Asian Heritage Month Art and Photo Exhibitions. May 21-May 26 at City Hall Rotunda and May 16-May 22 in the Metro Hall Rotunda.

One of the month’s highlights is on Friday May 27. It’s the Asian Heritage Month Gala Performance of Asian Canadian Artists. It’s in the Great Hall of Hart House, University of Toronto. The keynote speech is by Prof. Chan Ka Nin, composer of the movie ”Iron Road.” There will be performances of Peking opera, a Chinese-Persian dance drama, Indian and Chinese classical music, and the Chi Ping Dance group.

There are also events at libraries with Asian dancers, storytelling, food demonstrations and samples. I’m personally interested in the West Asian and Indonesian cultures. We see so little of it.  All these are free too.

You could impress your Filipino friends by telling them how much you know about Intramuros, the old Spanish-built fort in Manila. If you haven’t been there, you could find out about it when Harbourfront becomes Intramuros on May 28 and 29. Carlos Celdran, a Philippines-based performance artist, will be performing his walking tour of Intramuros, the oldest district of Manila. Armed with only a 19th-century period costume, and carrying his picture book and a tiny boombox, Celdran will bring the faraway building to life. His irreverent and entertaining re-telling of Manila’s colourful history is designed to make you laugh, cry and change the way you see the Philippines’ capital city. Click on: http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/theatre.cfm?id=2840.

On May 14, the Royal Ontario Museum has an Iranian Heritage Day. The special program is free but you have to pay the usual entrance fee.

More Asian Heritage events are on: http://vmacch.ca/ . Many are not free but you might want to splurge.

Please continue visiting www.torontomulticulturalcalendar.com from time to time as events will be added as we find out about them. Please also visit our www.Twitter.com/torontomulticul for last minute news. Do let us know of any other ethnic events.