First posted on October 28, 2010 by www.torontomulticulturalcalendar.com
TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com is about Toronto’s free or almost free multicultural festivals and events. Can we set a goal of giving every Torontonian a feeling of being part of one big multicultural community? Can we do this through a direct experience of each other’s events and interesting architecture?
TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com will cover food, performances, and markets at as many events as possible. What are your favourite ethnic festivals, musicians and dancers? Please tell us what’s happened to you at these festivals.
Give us tips on how best to enjoy these celebrations. Let’s experience the cultures of the world in Toronto. Let’s make some friends among Toronto’s diverse residents, and show our many different groups by our physical presence that other Torontonians do care about them. Please don’t just “friend” them on Facebook.
I’ll try to remind you of upcoming events on www.Twitter.com/TorontoMulticul and lets you know about a few dates at www.TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com . Please send us information about ethnic events I’ve missed, ones you want to share with other Toronto residents. E-mail your comments. Let us know if you want to volunteer your technical expertise, help with our expenses, or come with us to festivals for a stimulating time. My email is: ruthlormalloy@gmail.com.
Our thanks goes to Ian Mah and Ida Jagaric for their invaluable help in setting up this blog and our web-site calendar. Thanks also to Lucy Izon, Francisca de Zwager, Judy Wark, and my husband Mike Malloy for their sage advice.
Ruth Lor Malloy is behind TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com. She is a travel writer and photographer, born in Canada with an obsession to experience the whole world. She was brought up in a Chinese restaurant family in eastern Ontario, and has lived for extended periods in the U.S., the Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, India, Taiwan, and Thailand. She has also lived in Japan, Mexico and Brasil. From 1975 to 2002, she published a series of 14 guide books on China. She has also published guide books on Beijing and Hong Kong, and helped with one on Almaty. Her self-guided, downloadable photo tours on the Calgary Stampede, the Quebec Winter Carnival, The World in Toronto, and Toronto’s Many Chinatowns are available from VisualTravelTours.com. This company has also published her tours on Botswana, Mongolia and Helsinki.
Ruth’s travel articles have appeared in publications like the Asian Wall St. Journal, Copley News Service, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, and Globe and Mail. Her aim is to bring people of different backgrounds together as friends with an appreciation of each others’ cultures. She believes one of the ways this can be done in Toronto is to encourage visits to each other’s festivals. Her calendar lists free or nearly free events that provide such opportunities.
Hi Ruth,
While you primarily aim to acquaint local residents of Toronto with the many colorful multicultural events you report on, why not let visitors to the city in on the fun, too? Maybe link up with the city’s tourism folks so that visitors might know about these authentic observances when they’re in town.
In any case, good luck with spreading the word about all these events.
Norm
Hi Norm, Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to do this. Ruth
I’m signed up for the blog. Good to have notice of these events for my trips to Toronto!
Hi Solange, Many thanks for your Blog on things theatrical. I’ll consult it before I go to New York. Let me know when you’re
performing again near Toronto. Ruth.
Hello Ruth,
I’d like to speak with you about parntering with the City’s culture blog, LiveWithCulture.ca. Please reply to the email indicated.
Thanks in advance,
Chris
Hi Ruth,
This is a great idea! I wanted to let you know of the Toronto Ukrainian Bloor West Village Festival that takes place on Sept 16-18th this year. It is celebrating its 15th Anniversary and will span from Jane street to at least Runnymede on Bloor Street closing off the entire street. Please visit the Festival website for more details: http://ukrainianfestival.com
Would be delighted to have you cover this vibrant festival.
Best,
Natalya
Thanks Natalya. This is one of my favourite events because the parade is so colourful and the children
very cute. There’s a nice neighbourhood feeling too.
Hi Ruth,
It was wonderful meeting you at the GTA Eid Festival!
Best, Samia
Hi Wendy, Sorry I missed the Santas Around the World Festival last Saturday. Could you please put me on your mailing
list of events as I don’t have time to look at a couple hundred web-sites each month. We covered your Christmas Market last year
and will try to do so again this year. Please let us know about Christmas Around the World too. It was excellent last year. Ruth.
Hello! I feel like I hit the motherload of ethnic event websites! I work for a marketing agency, and I am currently complying a list of upcoming ethnic events (mostly Chinese and South Asian), I would greatly appreciate and love your help in creating this list since you seem to be very much in the know. Please feel free to email me.
Thanks!!!
Hi Kelly, Many upcoming events in the Chinese and South Asian communities are on http://www.TorontoMulticulturalCalendar.com as soon as I learn about them. I only mention free or nearly-free events and usually give a telephone number or web-site for more information. I think it would help if you looked at my 2011 list as dates for 2012 from the end of March are not yet available on my site. In some cases, I haven’t had time to post them.
For religious events, look at the Interfaith Calendar: http://www.interfairthcalendar.org. For Indian dates, try: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?country=35 . I have found dates of events for other countries on the web too and then had to do some phoning for the addresses and times. You might also want to look at: http://calendar.retira.eu/public-holidays/worldwide/2012/. Again, you might have to follow up with telephone calls.
I hope this helps. Ruth.
I forgot to mention the book: Toronto’s Many Faces by Tony Ruprecht. I highly recommend it as it gives
a lot of names, addresses and telephone numbers and statistics — by countries — but not all countries. Ruth.
Hello Ruth ! I admire you for everything that you have done in your life…!!! especially watching you bring the rich multicultural community of Toronto together in creating an atmosphere of oneness !…Congratulations !!! My daughter would love to participate as a Greek traditional singer who plays the lute, in the upcoming festival ! She would love to hear more about participating in the multicultural festival in June ! Thank you for everything that you offer to all of us, in this great city of Toronto!!!
Hi Issidora, Many thanks for your generous comments. I only blog about events; I don’t organize them. My blogs usually give a website contact. Please go to organizers who might be interested in a Greek traditional singer. These don’t have to be Greek. Neighbourhood multicultural festivals or Greek churches might be interested. This means a lot of research for you. Click on the magnifying glass at the top of my blog and type in “Greece,” or “Multicultural”. These events will be listed there. Good luck. Ruth.