Arts & Culture

Asian Heritage Month at the Toronto Public Library celebrates Asia’s rich ethnicity, which greatly contributes to the cultural mosaic that is Toronto. We are lucky to enjoy diverse traditions from across the East: stories, music and dance, martial arts, culinary arts, and lifestyle philosophies. This year, the library hosted intriguing programs with plenty of insight and entertainment for all ages in all parts of the city.

Asian Heritage Month dance and music performances at various library branches. 

Four Asian Homelands Festivals showcased cultural diversity from South, West and East Asia, and from China. Riverdale branch kicked things off with a Tai Chi workshop followed by Chinese brush painting, a perfect afternoon to attain mind-body-soul balance. Moving to Southeast Asia, audiences enjoyed dance and music with Andrew Timar and Keiko Ninomiya, storytelling, and henna art at Brentwood branch. Zipping to West Asia, North York Central Library hosted the Shiraz Ensemble performing Persian music and an intriguing lecture on Iranian architecture with Dr. Rafooneh M. Sani. Heading back to East Asia, Agincourt branch communities took a culinary journey through China followed by origami crafts.

Other program highlights included a discussion panel and photo exhibit entitled Working Lives of Chinese Canadian Women, sushi making with Chef Shoji, visits with Giller- prize author Vincent Lam, The Sympathizer author Viet Thanh Nguyen, and award-winning journalist Suzanne Ma. A lecture from Jeanette Kong shed light on the Chinese-Jamaican diaspora, and children of all ages were entertained with puppet shows, Japanese Kamishibai stories, and crafts galore.

Torontonians enjoy Chinese brush painting and henna hand tattoos across the city.

Year round, the Toronto Public Library has a number of collections in other languages, including books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs for adults and children. Languages include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Hindi, Gujarati, Vietnamese, Tamil, and Thai, to name a few; these multilingual collections can be found in branches across the city. For those looking to access material on their mobile devices, make use of our online Chinese magazine database. Additionally, customers can brush up on or learn another language with language learning kits at branches, or online with Mango Languages, accessible with your library card.