Asian Etch Your Sketch Off

On May 10, 2010, SKETCHOFF!#$%!! drew a large audience. In fact, it has been a sold-out event every year and the annual show has provided a rare showcase for various Asian stand-up comedians and sketch teams from all over Canada and the U.S. Organized and managed by Asian Canadian theatre icon Joyce Lam, the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre aims to produce quality plays in which Asian-Canadians take on culturally or artistically significant roles, dispelling Asian stereotypes and creating positive images. Not surprisingly, as a developer of talent, VACT has over the years helped launch such local Asian-Canadian sketch comedy troupes as Hot Sauce Posse and Assaulted Fish.

Hong Kong as Heritage Site

Hong Kong began as a coastal island geographically located in southern China. While small settlements had taken place in the Hong Kong region, with archaeological findings dating back thousands of years, regularly written records were not made until the engagement of Imperial China and the British colony in the territory. Starting out as a fishing village, salt production site and trading ground, it would evolve into a military port of strategic importance and eventually an international financial centre.

The World's First Asian Writing School in English

On January 15, 2010, City University of Hong Kong, an English-language school with seventeen thousand students and a campus notable for its urban, contemporary architecture, will begin accepting applications for a new low-residency MFA program in creative writing. Up to thirty students will be admitted and spend two summers and three long weekends on the Hong Kong campus studying poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in English over the course of two to four years. While the program will have a focus on Asian writing, it is open to writers from anywhere in the world. This is a significant turning point in not only English creative writing, but global creative writing, where languages emerge from a creole English that is now spoken so predominantly in many postcolonial geographies such as Singapore and Vancouver. Leading the charge as part of this is author Xu Xi.

Vancouver Chinatown

Vancouver Chinatown is a haven for tourists each year. But what many do not realize is that Chinatown rivals other Chinese cities such as Hong Kong in terms of historical significance. As the Western Hemisphere's second largest Chinatown in area (after San Francisco), and third largest in population (after San Francisco, and New York), Vancouver's Chinatown continues to hold much mystique, for much of the 20th century, Chinatown was often an ethnic enclave which the majority of white residents had excluded and ostracized. Much of the stories of Asian Canadian literature – Sky Lee, Wayson Choy, and Madeleine Thien, to name a few – use Chinatown as the backdrop for their stories.