Asian Heritage Month

Tod Inlet

Although Tod Inlet is now known as a beautiful hiking spot next to the Butchart Gardens, it also has historical significance for Asian immigrants in B.C. The Vancouver Portland Cement Company was founded at Tod Inlet in 1904, and during its existence, the company employed over 200 Chinese immigrants alongside White and First Nations workers. At least 40 Sikh immigrants also arrived to work for the cement plant in 1906.

The new workers quickly realized that the wages and work conditions at the plant were terrible. They were so bad that 15 workers went on strike and walked twenty kilometers to Victoria to protest. Unfortunately, the situation did not improve, and men continued to die from the work conditions. As the South Asian workers performed their own religious rituals, some of the earliest traditional Sikh cremation ceremonies in B.C. occurred at Tod inlet. After five years, most of the South Asian workers left and relocated to work in sawmills instead. Many of the worker’s descendants still live on Vancouver Island, and artifacts from the cement plant continue to be found at Tod Inlet to this day.

To read more about Tod Inlet’s history, check out Deep and Sheltered Waters from the library.

Paldi

Hide Hyodo Shimizu

A tenacious educator and activist, Hide Hyodo Shimizu was the first Japanese Canadian to teach in B.C.’s education system and a prominent advocator for the right for Japanese Canadians to vote in Canada. She even went to the House of Commons to speak about voting rights in 1936! Although unsuccessful in changing the law, her delegation’s visit helped to raise awareness of the discrimination Asian citizens experienced in Canada.

Shimizu taught for 16 years in Vancouver during a period rife with anti-Asian sentiment, before she was forced into an internment camp during the Second World War. In the camps, Shimizu helped develop a school system for the detained children and trained others to become teachers until the camps closed in 1945. In honour of all her efforts, Shimizu was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1982.

To learn more about Hide Hyodo Shimizu, check out the Hide Hyodo Shimizu Collection on the Nikkei Museum website.

Margaret Gee was a woman who accomplished many firsts for BC and Canada! In 1953, Margaret was the first Canadian woman of Chinese heritage to graduate from UBC Law School and the first Chinese Canadian woman to be called to the bar in BC. She was only 26 at the time! If that wasn’t impressive enough, she was also the first Chinese Canadian female Pilot Office in the Royal Canadian Air Force Reserves.

Margaret was born in Vancouver in 1927 during the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act. She grew up in Vancouver’s Chinatown where her parents operated a bookstore. Three years after the Law Society of BC lifted restrictions barring Chinese Canadians from legal professions, she attended and graduated from law school at UBC. One year later, Gee also became the first Chinese Canadian woman to practise law in British Columbia. She passed away in 1995.

For more information on Margaret Gee, check out this web resource from Toronto Metropolitan University.

Good Guys By Sharon Bala

Claire Talbot is the publicist at Children of the World, an NGO that funds international aid projects. When a journalist digs into their operations and reveals a shocking crime, Claire must
reckon with her complicity and all the ways her work abroad has harmed the very people she set out to save.

Pick A Colour By Souvankham Thammavongsa

A novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class, that follows a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don’t even know her name. Over one day, the friction between Ning’s two identities – anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances – will gather electric force and demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at women like Ning.

The Hypebeast By Adnan Khan

When small-time crook Hamid Shaikh’s girlfriend disappears, he is pulled into the orbit of social media imam Abdul Mohammad. At first, Abdul’s organization seems virtuous, but as Hamid dives deeper, he realizes that things are not as they appear, and he must decide just how far into darkness he is willing to go to find his girlfriend.

Outcaste By Sheila James

An epic tale that spans fifty years, four generations, and two continents, Outcaste revisits a complex period in India’s history while imbuing ordinary lives with extraordinarily dramatic dimensions. This is a brilliant novel that shimmers with emotional depth and crackling vibrancy.

Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead By Mai Nguyen

A darkly humorous yet uplifting novel about a grieving mother who starts working at a funeral home and discovers that the best way to honour the dead is to live.

The Breakwater By Leslie Shimotakahara

Shortly before WWII, Yas Matsumoto commits his troublesome younger brother, Stum, to an asylum — unknowingly sparing Stum from the Japanese Canadian internment camps. Decades later, the two brothers reunite to revisit a long-buried, unspeakable family secret.

The Tiger And The Cosmonaut By Eddy Boudel Tan

Combining the intrigue of a cracking good suspense novel with the depth of a rich character study, The Tiger and the Cosmonaut tells the story of a Chinese-Canadian family whose members have long made themselves quiet and obedient — and what happens when the cycle is finally broken.

The Road Between Us By Bindu Suresh

Travelling from Montreal to Ottawa to Toronto — and as far as New York, Beijing, and Buenos Aires — and spanning the first two decades of the twenty-first century, The Road Between Us uses its cast of characters to explore why we make the decisions we do and the effects those decisions have on those we love.

Villain Hitting For Vicious Little Nobodies By Lindsay Wong

A young woman signs her life away in the ancient Chinese tradition of corpse marriage in this wickedly hilarious novel about class, ambition, and the burden of being an impoverished model minority.

However Far Away By Rajinderpal S. Pal

A stunning debut novel that follows Devinder Gill, a man who must navigate the emotional minefield of both his wife and his ex-girlfriend, with whom he’s been having an affair, while attending his nephew’s wedding. A sweeping family saga about love, loss, and acceptance―set against the backdrop of a Sikh wedding.

The Hunger We Pass Down By Jen Sookfong Lee

Jordan Peele’s Us meets The School For Good Mothers in this horror-tinged intergenerational saga, as a single mother’s doppelganger forces her to confront the legacy of violence that has shaped every woman in their family.

Starry Starry Night By Shani Mootoo

Set in the 1960s Trinidad, the time period when the country gained independence, the reader bears witness to young Anju’s innocent and clear-eyed observations on an unexpectedly new and complex life, spanning from the ages of four to twelve.

Letters To Kafka By Christine Estima

A sweeping, tragic romance and feminist adventure about translator and resistance fighter Milena Jesenská’s torrid love affair with Franz Kafka. This book powerfully portrays the struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of wife, lover, and intellectual.

Wonderland Road By Carrianne Leung

In the near future, the collapse of social and political order turns a city upside down. As the world crumbles, the paths of twelve-year-old Jing, her aunt Pauline, and Julian, a once star athlete, will cross at Wonderland Road, a community trying to survive in a world of massive disruption and uncertainty.

Sucker Punch By Scaachi Koul

A memoir in essays about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself flips upside down, and all you can do is forge a new path forward.

Exhumations By Joanne Leow

In searing and gorgeous prose, Exhumations catalogues the many things that are produced under pressure. Bit by bit, Leow exposes the petrofiction at the heart of Singapore’s being and traces the unruliness of thought daily growing within her, difficult to ignore and impossible to repress.

Restaurant Kid By Rachel Phan

A warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.

Breakneck By Dan Wang

As the defining conflict of the twenty-first century approaches, Breakneck offers a riveting, firsthand investigation of China’s seismic progress—and what it means for America. Blending razor-sharp analysis with immersive storytelling, Wang offers a gripping portrait of a nation in flux. 

Dear Da-Lê By Anh Duong

In an intense memoir written for his daughter, Anh Duong speaks about the traumas of his childhood in war-torn Vietnam and his years as a refugee in Iran. This book is sure to resonate with anyone seeking to understand the lasting, hidden torments of violent conflict and the healing that can take place in the act of telling.

Crooked Teeth By Danny Ramadan

Danny Ramadan’s memoir refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver.

Magdaragat By Teodoro Alcuitas

Since first arriving in Canada, the Filipino community has contributed invaluably to the fabric of Canadian society. In this anthology, Magdaragat explores the diverse intricacies of these growing yet underrepresented peoples, continuing the vital work of recognizing and celebrating their cultural contributions.

Go-Between Girl By Andrea Gunraj

The under-told legacy of indentured servitude runs through the blood of countless descendants in the diaspora. In this deeply felt collection of essays, Andrea Gunraj explores the impact of her family’s history on her sense of self and invites readers to reconsider their own narratives about work, love, and heritage.

Lessons Of A Lifetime By David Suzuki

In words and photographs, Lessons From a Lifetime shares David Suzuki’s journey from surviving Japanese internment camps as a child to becoming North America’s most trusted voice in science communication. A stunning tribute to a fearless truth-teller who transformed how we understand our relationship with the natural world.

Life After Ambition By Amil Niazi

Channeling the subversive and sharp-eyed voice showcased in Amil Niazi’s popular column for The Cut, this memoir stylishly interrogates the aspirations of young adulthood, early middle age, motherhood and life after ambition, with sly humor and deep literary sensibility.

Notes From A Wayward Son By Adrian De Leon

An achingly honest memoir about the fraught relationship between Adrian De Leon and his father – a former captain in the Philippines military, a martial arts master and an archbishop – set in 1990s and early 2000s Scarborough, Ontario.

The Migrant Rain Falls In Reverse By Vinh Nguyen

An inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and the father’s mysterious disappearance along the way. Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for answers, and he discovers a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. An exploration of the psyche of a grieving son, as he chases certainty and seeks elusive resolution.

Return To Paueru Gai By Emiko Morita

In Return to Paueru Gai: Fifty Years of Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival, essays, photographs, archival images, and a chronology articulate the festival’s crucial role in uplifting Vancouver’s Japanese Canadian community and affirming its place in the history of the city.

Sextinction By Debra Soh

Dr. Debra Soh, neuroscientist and noted sex researcher, reports on the hidden crisis of a sudden decline of sexual activity. Compulsively readable, Sextinction upends the conventional wisdom surrounding sex, skewering pieties held by the right and left alike, and looks to the future of sexuality. 

Abode By Jun-Long Lee

A debut poetry collection that takes readers through hallucinatory geographies, plant-haunted spaces, and dreamlike corridors flooded with water and light, accompanied by an ever-changing subject that cannot make itself feel at home in its body, its country, or its language.

Vanishing Into The Blue By Kamal Parmar

Kamal Parmar, the Poet Laureate of the City of Nanaimo, BC, paints images on the canvas of our mind and her vivid expressionism opens the doors of imagination to microcosmic and macrocosmic universes. This wonderful, soothing collection of poems is salve for the mind and sooth for the soul.

We Follow The River By Onjana Yawnghwe

The story of one family’s escape from military violence in Myanmar, their exiled existence in Thailand, and their immigration to Canada with only a pile of beat up suitcases on a luggage cart. Intimate and honest, these poems tell of the quiet moments, the rough distillation of self, both hated and loved.

Elegy For Opportunity By Natalie Lim

This collection explores the tension and beauty of a world marked by grief. Confessional, funny and bursting with joy, Elegy for Opportunity extends a lifeline from Earth that will leave you feeling comforted, challenged and a little less alone in the universe.

Shadow Price: Poems By Farah Ghafoor

An urgent exploration of what it means to live and write as a young, visible Muslim woman in the present day. Borrowing its title from a finance term–“the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists,” this collection explores mortality, climate panic, and the violence of living in a capitalist society.

Love Poems By Rupi Kaur

A curated collection of love poems from Kaur’s acclaimed body of work, including poems from milk and honey, the sun and her flowers, and home body, along with a few bonus selections. These pieces capture the sensuality, romance, passion, and consuming nature of love.

The Distance Of A Shout By Michael Ondaatje

A singular poetic memoir that invokes the arc of Michael Ondaatje’s own journey over fifty years. The Distance of a
Shout offers us a rare glimpse into the life of an indispensable poet and novelist, a reminder itself of the power of great poetry to shine a light on living.

Are You Listening? By Zaynab Mohammed

Through the painful knocks of colonization, Zaynab Mohammed finds freedom by listening to herself, to others and to the earth. This book is a woven tapestry of transforming pain into beauty, into magic, and into possibility. What her words uncover are a quenching truth that gives the author access to what she lost as a child — her innocence.

Slows: Twice By T. Liem

This is a book of slow hours, days, and years, and how they can collapse into one another. From within this collapse, the speaker seeks connection everywhere. These poems are tied to themes of work and labour, consumption and waste, family and home, as shapers of identity and relationships.

Parade Of Storms By Evelyn Lau

Former Vancouver poet laureate Evelyn Lau places weather at the forefront, interweaving reflections on grief, illness, and mortality. Divided into five parts, Lau’s work explores not only the tempests of nature but also inner turbulence —the vulnerability and upheavals that can shape a life.

An Orange, A Syllable By Gillian Sze

Each prose poem in this five part collection darts between the many meanings of “fit”–as in “a sudden burst of emotion” or “to be the right size and shape,” and the archaic “fytte” (a section of a poem). This prosimetrical work is a meditation on motherhood, language, and art.

Wet By Leanne Dunic

A transient Chinese American model working in Singapore thirsts: for fair labour rights, the extinguishing of forest fires, breathable air, healthy animal habitats, human connection. With empathy and desire, Wet unravels complexities of social stratification, sexual privation, and environmental catastrophe

Tabako On The Windowsill By Hari Alluri

To shape an entire book around portals and thresholds is to search for living myth. Following an immigrant point of view while maintaining home in a language that engages with blood and chosen family, Alluri offers multiple lived and ancestral spaces in India, the Philippines, Nigeria, the U.S., and Canada.

I Cut My Tongue On A Broken Country By Kyo Lee

A debut poetry collection about reconciling with oneself and learning to love, through a youthful, queer diasporic Korean lens. I Cut My Tongue On A Broken Country is a eulogy for the things we gave up to get here. It’s an ode to tenderness. It blossoms and bleeds in your hands.

Echolalia Echolalia By Jane Shi

Relentlessly inventive poetry that proclaims a diasporic, queer, and disabled self-hood. Writing against inherited violence and scarcity-producing colonial projects, Shi expresses a deep belief in one’s chosen family, love and justice.

Sisters In Yellow By Meiko Kawakami

From the writer of the international bestseller Breasts and Eggs comes a story about a group of friends fighting for freedom, independence, and survival in 1990s Tokyo, a world rapidly dividing into haves and have-nots. 

A Calamity Of Noble Houses By Amira Ghenim

Tunisia, 1930s. Against the turbulent backdrop of a country in search of identity, the destinies of two families intertwine. The events of the fateful night that changed everything are recounted by eleven narrators, who recall them from different moments in time over a span of 70 years.

Snowy Day And Other Stories By Ch’ang-dong Yi

These brilliant, unsettling tales — originally published in 1980s Korea and now translated into English for the first time — investigate themes of injustice, betrayal, and terror-on both an intimate and national scale.

Blowfish By Kyung-Ran Cho

An atmospheric, melancholic novel about a sculptor who decides to die by suicide by artfully preparing and deliberately eating a lethal dish of blowfish. Evoking the heterogeneous urban spaces of Seoul and Tokyo, Blowfish delves into the inner life of a woman contemplating her failures in love and art.

Empty Cages By Fāṭimah Qandīl

The intimate story of an Egyptian family disintegrating and perhaps, a whole way of life. Memories of a happy childhood melt away to reveal the fecklessness of selfish brothers, a father’s addiction, a mother’s illness, and the violence and death — literal, figurative — of those nearby.

Heart Lamp By Banu Mushtaq

In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq builds emotional heights out of a rich spoken style and exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in Southern India.

Everyday Movement By Gigi Leung

A powerful novel that follows the lives of two women as democracy starts to crumble in Hong Kong. Fiery and tender, Leung’s writing captures the heartbreak, turmoil, and rebirth in bearing witness to and engaging with a shattering reality.

Our City That Year By Gītāñjali Śrī

A kaleidoscopic novel about a fractured society, loosely based on the gathering violence that eventuated in the demolition of the Babri Mosque by religious extremists in 1992. Our City that Year follows three intellectuals in a time of rising uncertainty and dread, when nothing will go back to being as it was before.

Strange Houses By Uketsu

A writer fascinated by the macabre finds himself investigating an eerie house for sale in Tokyo. At first, with its bright and spacious interior, it seems the perfect first home. But upon closer inspection, the building’s floor plans reveal a mysterious “dead space” hidden between its walls…

The Man of Middling Height By Fadi Zaghmout

This Jordanian novel reframes contemporary discussions about gender, sexuality, and race through the lens of height discrimination. The novel centers on the romance between a short dressmaker and her client, Tallan, who is of middle height and therefore shunned by society.

Hunchback By Saou Ichikawa

A provocative, defiant debut about a young Japanese woman in a care home seeking autonomy and possibility. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this novel reminds us all of the potential of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience. 

Spent Bullets By Terao Tetsuya

Set in Taiwan and the Silicon Valley, a collection of linked stories that explore the meaning of success and the purpose of existence, centered on the short life and long shadow of an engineering genius who descends deeper into despair while rising higher on the professional ladder.

Simple Heart By Hae-jin Cho

In this moving exploration of dual identities, a Korean writer’s pregnancy raises questions about her own childhood abandonment. Following a compulsion to learn more about her roots, she heads to Seoul and through unexpected encounters, the dark threads of her memory gradually begin to unravel.

Women, Seated By Zhang Yueran

A novel about the unravelling lives of a nanny and the family she works for following the downfall of its patriarch, a prominent Chinese politician. When the family is investigated by the government, the nanny is left to make choices. How far will she go to claim her due?

Hard is the Journey By Lily Chow

The difficult history of Chinese Canadians in the Kootenay. Chow bravely exposes dark parts of BC’s history while shedding light on the struggles and untold accomplishments of the Chinese immigrants who risked everything and often lost their lives in building the Canada we know today.

Indomitable Canadian Filipinos By Eleanor R. Laquian

This book outlines how a million Filipino immigrants turned hardships into opportunities and a better life in Canada for their children. An ongoing narrative by academicians, researchers, journalists, and essayists of the 70-year history of Filipino immigration to Canada.

Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet By Masako Fukawa

Even in the face of prejudice and inhumanity, the spirit of the Nikkei fishermen has left a memorable legacy. An intimate collection of stories of Japanese Canadians on thewater, from the first Japanese immigrant’s arrival in 1877 to the present day.

Witness to Loss By Jordan Stanger-Ross

Kishizo Kimura’s  previously unknown memoir, translated and published for the first time. More complex than just hero or villain, oppressor or victim, Kimura raises important questions about the meaning of resistance and collaboration and the constraints faced by an entire generation.

An Uncommon Road  By Gian Singh Sandhu

A riveting, incisive account of some of the most complex modern Canadian politics, from the founder of the World Sikh Organization of Canada. This book provides a moving roadmap for how individuals and a community can fight for their own social justice and, in doing so, gain justice for all.

Saltwater City By Paul Yee

A text resonant with often painful first-person recollections combined with 200 photographs, most reproduced for the first time, to form achronological portrait of the Chinese Canadian community in Vancouver from its earliest beginnings to the present.

Being Chinese in Canada By William Ging Wee Dere

This comprehensive work looks at Chinese workers’ huge role in building the CPR and the following Chinese head tax. Dere gives voice to generations of Chinese Canadians, including his family, and discusses the head tax redress movement.

Chiru Sakura By Grace Eiko Thomson

As an advocate for reconciliation, Thomson openly shares her story and her mother’s story with the next generations. A vital memoir by two Japanese Canadian women reflecting on their family history, cultural heritage, generational trauma, and the meaning of home.

Great Fortune Dream By Chuen-yan Lai

The struggles and triumphs of Chinese settlers in Canada during the gold rushes. What began as a population of displaced Chinese migrants working to save their fortune for a better life back in China evolved into a community of Chinese Canadians, one withroots firmly planted in the history and culture of Canada.

White Riot By Henry Tsang

These essays and photographs discuss the 1907 anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. They consisted of a demonstration and mob attack on Chinese and Japanese Canadian communities. The book explores the events through the lens of current anti-Asian hate.

A Journey with the Endless Eye  By Ajmer Rode

This book narrates the Komagata Maru tragedy, in which 376 Indian passengers were imprisoned on a steam ship, and then turned away from entering the country by Canadian Immigration. With paintings and short narratives, Rode blends the history, drama and emotional impact of the incident into one.

The Diary of Dukesang Wong By Dukesang Wong, Wendy Joy Hoe (Translation)

This remarkable book contains the only known first-person account of a Chinese worker on 19th century railways. Translated by Wong’s granddaughter, the diary chronicles Wong’s experiences on Gold Mountain, including exploitation, comradery, sickness, starvation, work, and racism.

Paper Shadows By Wayson Choy

From his experiences with ghosts, through his youthful encounters with cowboys and bachelor uncles, to his discovery of family secrets from mainland China to Gold Mountain in the form of paper shadows, this is a beautifully wrought memoir from one of Canada’s most gifted storytellers.

The Nail That Sticks Out By Suzanne Elki Yoko Hartmann

This memoir and fourth-generation narrative of the Japanese Canadian experience bridges the individual and collective to celebrate family, places, and traditions. Steeped in history and cultural arts, it shows us how a community triumphed over adversity to rebuild and become stronger.

Asian Canadian History and Archives: Created by the University of British Columbia, this archive compiles over 60 collections featuring the records of Asian Canadians. From personal journals to administrative records of early Asian Canadian businesses, from drafts of novels to photo albums and travel documents, the materials included in this guide are representative of a vital group of voices that deserve recognition for all of their contributions to Canadian history. Be sure to check out the archive’s incredible StoryMap as well!

South Asian Canadian Heritage Website: This website highlights the many historical projects, research, and databases which have been created and organized by the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley and its partnerships. With over 90 community stories collected on the website as well, it’s also a great resource for learning and appreciating more recent South Asian Canadian history too!

The British Columbia Encyclopedia: This database is the definitive reference database on historical and contemporary British Columbia. Have a look at the entries for South Asians, Japanese, and Chinese in particular.

The Canadian Encyclopedia’s Asia Canada Timeline: A chronological record of over 200 years of history since the first Chinese settlers helped build a trading post in Nootka Sound. It touches on the settlement history of various Asian groups, the discrimination that many suffered in our early history, accomplishments, firsts, biographies, and the gradual changes through which Canadian society came to accept the rights and equality of its Asian immigrants.

Heritage BC’s Cultural Maps: Explore Heritage B.C.’s wonderful cultural heritage maps for Chinese Canadian, Japanese Canadian, and South Asian Canadian historic places. These maps are a community-sourced project, created to highlight the diverse stories, heritage, and history of British Columbia.

The Knowledge Network: The content of this publicly funded TV network serving B.C. is available online. Check out the Asia Pacific content!

Check out these FREE streaming movies available through Kanopy, a database available with your library card, and the National Film Board of Canada. Some are full feature length and some are shorts. All are great and librarian-recommended! In parentheses after each film name there is an indication of which Asian identities, cultures, and/or countries are represented.

Legend for symbols:

Canadian  

Woman-Directed

LGBTQ+ Content

Documentaries

1. One Big Hapa Family: The Japanese Canadian Identity  (Japan)
2. Shalom Bollywood (India)
3. Genghis Khan and the Rise of the Mongols  (China)
4. Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Team (Japan)  
5. Cricket and Parc-Ex: A Love Story: Immigrants and Sports in a Vibrant Canadian Neighbourhood (Bangladesh, Pakistan)
6. Mallamall (India)  
7. Painted Nails  (Vietnam)
8. Slaying the Dragon  (Multiple Asian Identities)
9. Namrata (India)
10. Western Eyes  (Philippines, Korea)  
11. The Bassinet (China)    
12. Becoming Labrador  (Philippines)  
13. Earth to Mouth (China)
14. Gayasians  (Multiple Asian Identities)  
15. Sentenced Home: The Deportation of Cambodian Americans  (Cambodia)
16. The Split Horn: The Life of A Hmong Shaman in America  (Hmong)
17. The Slanted Screen: Hollywood’s Representation of Asian Men in Film & Television  (Multiple Asian Identities)
18. First Person Plural  (Korea)
19. A Thousand Mothers  (Myanmar)
20. The Donut King  (Cambodia)

Narrative / Fictional Film

1. Old Stone (China)
2. Funeral Parade with Roses (Japan)
3. Bollywood Beats (India)  
4. Sweet Bean  (Japan)
5. Shanghai Triad  (China)
6. The Tag Along  (Taiwan)
7. What Will People Say  (Pakistan)
8. Remittance  (Philippines)
9. The Handmaiden  (Korea)
10. Pop Aye  (Thailand) 
11. Ploy  (Thailand)
12. The Third Wife (Vietnam)
13. Daughter of the Nile  (Taiwan)
14. Dukhtar (Pakistan)
15. By the Time It Gets Dark (Thailand)
16. Becoming Who I Was (Tibet)
17. 1000 Rupee Note (India)
18. Cemetery of Splendor (Thailand)
19. The Rocket (Laos)
20. In Her Place (Korea)

Animated Films

1. Minoru: Memory of Exile (Japan)
2. A Letter to Momo (Japan)
3. Seoul Station (Korea)
4. The Girl Who Hated Books (India)
5. Sister (China)
6. Flowing Home (coming soon) (Vietnam)
7. Roses Sing on New Snow (China)
8. Lights for Gita  (India)

Want more Asian movies? You can find browse all the movies marked Asian Studies on Kanopy. On Kanopy, also check out the pages for Chinese Cinema, Japanese Cinema, Indian Cinema, Filipino Cinema and Korean Cinema. On the National Film Board’s website, you can browse all content marked Asian Origin (note that while most NFB films are free to watch, a few are not).

Mango Languages is a sophisticated, high quality, go-at-your-own-pace language learning tool that is FREE with your library card. You can start as a beginner or take a placement test to assess where you should start in the program. Asian Languages you can learn include:

• Bengali
• Cantonese
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Malay
• Mandarin
• Punjabi
• Shanghainese
• Tagalog
• Tamil
• Thai
• Vietnamese

AND MORE! Get your library card number handy and an email address, and sign up today!