Cleveland Asian Festival 2023

 Over 45,000 people attended the Cleveland Asian Festival (CAF) on Saturday May 20 and Sunday May 21, 2023.  The AsiaTown neighborhood was packed with families and people of all ages to enjoy the annual festival that kicks off summer in Cleveland.

Since inception in 2010 the Cleveland Asian Festival highlights Cleveland’s AsiaTown, Diversity, and Asian Culture in Northeast Ohio.  It was organized in 2010 by volunteer community leaders to celebrate Cleveland’s diversity and Asian Pacific American Heritage month (May).    This signature event defines AsiaTown and brings tens of thousands, including many first-timers, to the neighborhood. 

Surveys show that a large percentage of visitors will return to AsiaTown to shop, dine and enjoy the neighborhood.  By being in AsiaTown, CAF has led to the creation of new businesses in the area as well as neighborhood beautification with arts and cultural displays and decorations throughout the district.

Attendees enjoyed two stages of performances that featured traditional and modern music and dance as well as martial arts.  The Asian Pop Dance competition was especially popular with the younger attendees. The Trivia Contest had an Asian theme.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is an important recognition of the contributions of the AAPI community and a chance to stand together against recent anti-Asian sentiments.  CAF attracts the Asian community but also groups representing the numerous diverse ethnic heritages of Cleveland. 

The CAF team is already working on plans to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month at the Cleveland Asian Festival next May 18 and 19, 2024.  

Here is our coverage of CAF in case you missed any.

 

The main page is at https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/asian/2023/caf-2023.htm

 

That branches to 3 photo pages:

 

https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/asian/2023/caf-2023p.htm

 

https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/asian/2023/caf-2023p2.htm

 

and https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/asian/2023/caf-2023p3.htm

 

There are also performance pages:

 

Kwan Lion Dance  https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/chinese/2023/kwan-family-lion-dance.htm

 

Stellar Acrobatics https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/chinese/2023/caf-stellar-acrobatics.htm

 

Rosa Lee group  https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/chinese/2023/chinese-instruments.htm

 

Yume Daiko  https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/japanese/2023/caf-yume-daiko.htm

 

Sho-Jo-Ji https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/japanese/2023/caf-sho-jo-ji.htm

 

Indian dance https://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups/asian-indians/2023/caf-indian-dance.htm

    

Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Workshop

A Chinese painting and calligraphy event was held at the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University on June 2, 2018. Three artists made presentations on different Chinese art forms to a group of college students and staff from Marietta College, Ohio.

See more of the Chinese painting and calligraphy event at the Confucius Institute 

Ohio China Day 2018 in Cleveland

Ohio China Day 2018 was celebrated with a Chinese New Year Gala in Cleveland Public Auditorium on February 24, 2018.

It was organized by Chinese Communities in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Buffalo including Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association, Cleveland Contemporary Chinese School and in Partnership with the City of Cleveland.

Attendees enjoyed spectacular Chinese New Year performances and activities including Lion Dance, Martial Arts, Folk Art Performance, Authentic Chinese Foods, Children's Activities, Chinese Drawing, Calligraphy and more.

3 pages of photos and videos from Ohio China Day 2018

Top 5 list of groups visited in January

Always interesting to see which pages get the most visits in a month.

The Top 5 groups with the most visitors in January 2018 on ClevelandPeople.Com were: Indian, Polish, Chinese, Lithuanian and Hungarian.

Making Happy Chinese New Year Dumplings

On January 31st, the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University held the first workshop in the Chinese Culture Workshop Series; making dumplings to celebrate the approaching Chinese Spring Festival which will be held on February 16, 2018 and Chinese New Year Celebration which will be held on February 24, 2018.

Chinese cuisine enjoys worldwide prestige. Dumplings, are a traditional, mouth- watering comfort food, which make dumplings attractive to students on campuses and citizens around the world.

See photos and more from the Chinese Dumpling class

Experiencing Chinese Culture from Ethnic Traditional Clothing

"The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but, when I stand in front of you, yet, you don't know that I love you", so said the poet. What I would like to say is that "The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but, when I stand in front of you, and you think, "who are you?", "all Chinese look the same"---- This is how Oberlin middle school teacher Ms. Shuo Jin, of Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University, feels.A considerable amount of Americans think that all of the Chinese people are the same!

In order to expand American students' horizons and diminish their over-generalized impressions of Chinese people, Xuhong Zhang (Cleveland State University Confucius Institute's associate director), along with teachers Shuo Jin and Jinting Xing, held a two-day Chinese Traditional clothing show at Langston Middle School on October 9 and 10, 2017.

A total of eighty-five students from Grades 6 through 8, have participated in this event and experienced the incredible beauty of traditional Chinese clothing.

See more from the Chinese Ethnic Traditional Clothing event

Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association

Youngsters from the Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association (CCCCA) performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art's 2017 International Cleveland Community Day in the Atrium of the museum.

See more from Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association

Qiao Ya Chinese Dance at CSU Chinese New Year

Students from the Great Wall Enrichment Center performed a Qiao Ya Chinese Dance.

Photos and videos from the 15 performances

Chinese in Cleveland

Chinese Tangram Puzzle

Mathematician Dan Hanson spoke at the ClevelandPeople.Com Food Adventure to The Pearl Asian Kitchen.  The Food Adventurers travel to authentic ethnic restaurants in the Cleveland area and, besides enjoying a special traditional menu, learn about the culture of the country.

Dan told about and demonstrated the popular Chinese Tangram Puzzle whcih was as popular as the Rubik's Cube when it came out.

Cleveland Chinese community

Great Lakes Geek Science and Math



Here is a duck made of the 7 Tangram puzzle pieces

Chinese Math and the Abacus

Mathematician Dan Hanson spoke at the ClevelandPeople.Com Food Adventure to The Pearl Asian Kitchen.  The Food Adventurers travel to authentic ethnic restaurants in the Cleveland area and, besides enjoying a special traditional menu, learn about the culture of the country.

Dan told some basics about Chinese mathematics and the Chinese abacus which is able to do hexadecimal calculation as opposed to abacuses from other countries.


Cleveland Chinese community

Great Lakes Geek Math and Science

 

Counting in Chinese

Luling Li teaches Chinese language at Shaker Heights High School. She spoke at the ClevelandPeople.Com Food Adventure to The Pearl Asian Kitchen.  The Food Adventurers travel to authentic ethnic restaurants in the Cleveland area and, besides enjoying a special traditional menu, learn about the culture of the country.

 Luling taught the audience the characters and pronunciation of numbers in Mandarin.

  Cleveland Chinese community

5 basic Chinese characters

Luling Li teaches Chinese language at Shaker Heights High School. She spoke at the ClevelandPeople.Com Food Adventure to The Pearl Asian Kitchen.  The Food Adventurers travel to authentic ethnic restaurants in the Cleveland area and, besides enjoying a special traditional menu, learn about the culture of the country.

Luling showed 5 important Chinese characters.



Cleveland Chinese community

Difference between American and Chinese dining

Chef Rose Wong told of a fundamental difference between American and Chinese dining.

For example, in Chinese dining it is impolite to fill the plate.  Everything goes into a small bowl bite sized pieces at a time.

See more about the Food Adventures

Cleveland Chinese community

Cleveland Cooks
 

Chinese Food – 5 different flavors and geographical differences

Chef Rose Wong of the Pearl Asian Kitchen Restaurant (formerly Pearl of the Orient) in Shaker Heights Ohio, explained Chinese food to the ClevelandPeople.Com Food Adventurers.  The Food Adventurers travel to authentic ethnic restaurants in the Cleveland area and, besides enjoying a special traditional menu, learn about the culture of the country.

Chef Rose Wong told of the 5 different flavors of Chinese food and how the food varies in different parts (North, South, etc.) of China.

She said that Chinese will eat anything that moves and everything inside and out of whatever moves.

Cleveland Cooks

Cleveland Chinese

Food Adventurers

Margaret Wong welcome to Asian health event

Immigration Attorney Margaret Wong hosted an educational reception at her law offices in Cleveland to show healthy Asian cooking examples and to learn about the health issues of the Asian population.

This video is her brief welcome first in English and then in Chinese.

See more of the Chinese community of Cleveland

Johnny Wu – growing up with diplomat father

Cleveland Asian Community leader and filmmaker Johnny Wu spoke at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage on a Global Cleveland panel titled Begin the Conversation: Cleveland's Immigrant Communities Today: Pan-Asian Community.  He spoke about his upbringing in a diplomat’s family that traveled to many countries.  His father was strict and made him learn Chinese and martial arts at an early age.


More of the Asian Community Panel

The bride (and groom) wear red

The bride (and groom) wear red

Young ladies from the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University showed various traditional Chinese dresses and hats at a celebration of the Lunar New Year 2015 Year of the Goat. They showed traditional Chinese fashion, emperor and queen's dresses as well as wedding dresses which are usually red for both the bride and groom.

Chinese Lunar New Year by Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University

Chinese Lunar New Year by Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University

The Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University, Asian Services In Action, Inc., the Chinese American Faculty & Staff Association, Cleveland Asian Festival, the Cleveland Contemporary Chinese Culture Association, the Chinese Professionals and Entrepreneurs Association, the Cleveland Public Library, Media Design Imaging, OCA Cleveland Chapter, and Westlake Chinese School gathered together for a celebration of the Lunar New Year.

Photos and Videos from Lunar New Year at CSU

17th Annual Cleveland Asian Catholic Mass and Gathering

About 1000 people celebrated the 17^th Annual Cleveland Asian Catholic Mass and Gathering on Sunday, October 5 hosted by the Asian Ministry of the Diocese of Cleveland.

The cultural and ethnic diversity of the Asian Catholic communities assembled at the Mass was reflected throughout the celebration. Members of the various Asian communities came together with their own traditions, dressed in colorful ethnic clothes: shimmering saris, kimonos, karawangs, hanboks, barongs, and ao dai.

The entrance procession included Vietnamese drums. During the Mass there was an incense ceremony by the Vietnamese, and the Indian aarti. Hymns were sung by the choirs in various Asian languages: Tagalog (Filipino), Korean, Vietnamese and Hindi (Indian).

The readings and the prayers of the faithful were also said in various Asian languages.

Photos and videos of the Asian Catholic Gathering

Chinese Dance at Traveling the Silk Road exhibition opening

Yin Tang performed in a classic Tang Dynasty costume with a fusion of movements through various Chinese dynastic perfoming arts. How she avoided getting tangled in the flowing costume we will never know. She performed at the Traveling the Silk Road exhibition grand opening at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.


Photos and videos of Yin Tang