For a long time, many members of the Hong Kong film industry, both on and off screen, have moved to North America or constantly traveled between the two places for work, education, or simply in search of a better life. You can find them on film sets and post-production studios all over Hong Kong and Asia, while simultaneously making their mark in many North American film studios or international film festivals.
Read MoreBorn in Harbin, China, and raised in Toronto, Emily had a traditional Asian upbringing. This included parents who, naturally, encouraged her to pursue a livelihood that would be financially sound. She dutifully fulfilled her parents’ expectations, studying business and starting a stable career. They were pleased.
Read MoreArtistic soul Emma or “FYi” Khoo has straddled many mediums, including modelling, makeup and photography. She also is an accomplished singer, is pursuing a PhD and has an architecture background. Proudly showcasing her culture, Emma’s content includes stories that she grew up with, including anime, Ancient Egypt, Greek myths to Chinese legends and novels Journey to the West and the Three Kingdoms.
Read MoreTypeface or font designers are a rare breed. And Chinese typeface designers are even more scarce, which one can understand given this context: The average Western/Latin typeface is comprised of about 200 glyphs (the symbols that make up a writing system, including letters, numerals, punctuation, accents, etc. ) to create a functional set, whereas the average font used for Traditional Chinese in Hong Kong or Taiwan requires over 13,000 glyphs for basic usage. That number jumps up to a staggering 20,000 glyphs for when you add other Chinese dialects and regions, such as the characters in Simplified Chinese!
Read MoreThe Hong Kong Arts Exhibition aim to showcase how Hong Kong artists adopt traditional craft to create culturally-rich contemporary artworks including mini cheongsam dummies, lion head crafts, galvanized iron coffee sets and letter boxes for home deco or use in daily life. The making of these artworks are considered an intangible part of Hong Kong’s cultural heritage and craftsmanship.
Read MoreYou may recognize Ishie Wang’s face immediately: she is one of the prominent Asian models in Canadian advertisements for Roots, Hudson’s Bay, Sporting Life, and The Shopping Channel. From an early age, her family clearly envisioned a cultivated life of aesthetics and artistic appreciation for her. Ishie began learning piano at the age of 3 1/2, studied calligraphy and Chinese painting at the age of 4, and learned erhu at 6 and percussion instruments at 8. By the age of 11, she had completed her Grade 9 Piano certification and was recognized in numerous musical competitions.
Read MoreOn May 25th, in celebration of Jewish and Asian Heritage month, the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto hosted the TRIBUTE TO FRIENDSHIP EXHIBITION.
Opening night highlighted the cross cultural experiences of the two cultures, and featured the works of over 25 Jewish and Chinese artists who explored the 1000 year historical legacy of the Jewish and Chinese communities.
Read MoreArt reflects our ever-changing culture and has the ability to shift society's values and views. Racism and injustice have been a huge topics during the pandemic, magnified by the heartbreaking discovery of thousands of unmarked childrenís graves at Indigenous residential school sites, the Black Lives Matter movement, and anti-Asian racism, discrimination and violence in North America.
Read MoreArt reflects our ever-changing culture and has the ability to shift society's values and views. Racism and injustice have been a huge topics during the pandemic, magnified by the heartbreaking discovery of thousands of unmarked childrenís graves at Indigenous residential school sites, the Black Lives Matter movement, and anti-Asian racism, discrimination and violence in North America.
Read MoreIn 2008 my mother Isabel Sun Chao and I began a decade-long journey digging into our family’s past, which we recounted in our family memoir Remembering Shanghai. My maternal grandfather Sun Bosheng was born in China in 1894, a year whose cosmological confluences portended conflict, instability and disaster. Two months before his birth, a great fire in Shanghai destroyed over one thousand buildings, and the First Sino-Japanese War broke out shortly after. By all accounts he was born with silver chopsticks; yet war, famine and political upheaval dogged him throughout his life.
Read MoreI am often too focussed on how the world sees me that I sometimes forget to see myself. As a Chinese woman, one of my defining features are my eyes. These are the same eyes that were ridiculed when I was a child. I still remember the chant about them which made me feel ugly. It resides in my mind as the first time I realised I looked different from everyone else. Yet, I now love these imaginative eyes that, when closed, take me to faraway lands and places I never thought I would see. Now, I am proud of these almond eyes, eyes that guide me to paint, draw and create. I cherish them for the beauty that they let me see, in others and over the years, in myself and my journey.
Read MoreI think at some point, every 2nd Generation immigrant is questioned about their identity. No better example comes from the cliché, “Where do you come from?”. We are asked this from childhood and are often confused by the follow-up question, “No, where are you REALLY from?”. As we grew older, it became a complex emotional response that I, at least, almost never vocalized. This year, by some unintentional force of nature, is our moment where we embrace who we are.
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