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 Trouble 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.

Download a PDF version of this booklist here

Reuniting With Strangers By Jennilee Austria Bonifacio

When five-year-old Monolith moves from the Philippines to Canada, he immediately goes mute and lashes out. Everyone has a theory for why, but the reasons are deceptive and revealed in humorous, joyful and devastating ways.

The Double Life of Benson Yu By Kevin Chong

This gripping work of metafiction often reminds the reader they’re reading fiction. Set in 1980s Chinatown, it follows 12-year-old Benny as he moves in with his neighbour who believes himself to be a reincarnated samurai. It also tells the story of Yu, the narrator trying to piece Benny’s life together.

A History Of Burning By Janika Oza

Four generations. Three sisters. One impossible choice. A moving debut novel spanning India, Uganda, England, and Canada, about how one act of survival reverberates across generations and a family’s search for a place of their own.

Hollow Bamboo By William Ping

The story of a lost millennial and the grandfather he knows nothing about. Drawing on elements of magical realism, autofiction and satire, Hollow Bamboo recounts with humour and sympathy the brutal struggles, and occasional successes, of some of the first Chinese immigrants in Newfoundland.

We Meant Well By Erum Shazia Hasan

Who gets to decide what it means to be charitable? When her colleague is accused of assault at the orphanage where they work, Maya is called in. Caught between the victim, the accused, the charity and the villagers, Maya lives the secret struggle of the aid worker: thereto serve, but ultimately there to govern.

Everything There Is By M.G. Vassanji

Nurul Islam, an outspoken world-renowned physicist, turns his life upside down after refusing to contribute to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons project and having an affair with a graduate student. A portrait of a traditional, spiritual man facing inescapable forces.

A Great Country By Shilpi Somaya Gowda

When the Shah family’s young son is arrested, each family member is forced to re-examine themselves as individuals, community members, and Americans. A gripping read that explores themes of immigration, generational conflict, and social class as it reconsiders the model minority myth.

Sunshine Nails By Mai Nguyen

NGUA tender, humorous, and page-turning debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family in Toronto who will do whatever it takes to protect their no-frills nail salon after anew high-end salon opens up, even if it tears the family apart.

Chrysalis By Anuja Varghese

A poignant and chilling debut story collection that delves into complex intersections of family, community, sexuality, and cultural expectations. Varghese examines the ways racialized women are robbed of power, and revels in the strange and dangerous journeys they undertake to reclaim it.

The Laundryman’s Boy By Edward Y.C. Yeed

After being sent to Ontario to work in a laundromat, 13-year-old Hoi thinks his hope of an education is lost. Life has different plans, however, and through trials and tribulations, he finds a way to happiness. An enduring, heartfelt coming-of-age tale.

The Light of Eternal Spring By Angel Di Zhang

A cinematic debut novel that travels from New York City to northeast China, on the trail of a young photographer who must reconcile with her dead mother before she can see the world again. Using magical realism, Di Zhang creates  a nuanced portrait of a family lost and then found.

On The Ravine By Vincent Lam

When a violinist’s life crosses with a doctor haunted by the patients he has lost to the opioid crisis, she is drawn deeply into the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship. Combining his experience as a physician with his literary talent, Lam creates a world electric and radiant in its detail and precision.

Camp Zero By Michelle Min Sterling

One Korean woman’s fate intertwines with the workers at a climate research facility as she carries out a secret mission. Sterling adeptly explores how gender, class, and migration may impact who survives a climate crisis.

Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality By Lindsay Wong

Wong’s collection of darkly funny horror short stories features zombies, ghosts, and demons. In one story, a 17th century Chinese courtesan can’t die. In another, Grandmama Wu rises from her grave to protect her grandkids from bullies.  The settings range from Vancouver to Shanghai.

Download a PDF version of this booklist here

Landbridge: Life In Fragments By Y-Dang Troeung

Y-Dang weaves back and forth in time to tell stories about her parents and brothers who lived through the Cambodian genocide, the lives of her grandparents and extended family, and her own childhood in refugee camps and in rural Ontario.

The Heart Of A Superfan  By Nav Bhatia

In this memoir, Nav shares his incredible personal story of triumphing over adversity, and imparts the lessons that propelled him to success in all facets of life: as an entrepreneur, movie producer, humanitarian, son, father and husband, and the Toronto Raptors’ most famous devotee.

When My Ghost Sings By Tara Sidhoo Fraser

After a stroke, Tara sees her memories through someone else’s eyes, nicknamed Ghost. Fighting for stability, Tara struggles with the gulf between who she was and who she is now, while paying penance to Ghost. A lucid exploration of amnesia, selfhood, and who is left behind when the past is obliterated.

Nowhere, Exactly By M.G. Vassanji

Can we ever truly belong in anew home? Did we ever truly belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? Nowhere, Exactly combines brilliant prose, thoughtful observation, and a lifetime of exploring how we are shaped by our communities and the history that haunts them.

My Name Is Not Harry By Haroon Siddiqui

Veteran Toronto Star editor Siddiqui shares his journalistic forays into corridors of power, war zones, and cultural minefields. He also takes the reader along his personal journey from British colonial India to Canada and witnessing the country’s evolution in a post 9/11 world.

Out Of Darkness By Denise Chong

A political, social and cultural portrait of domestic abuse in times of turmoil, and the Bangladeshi woman whose spirit found light in sudden darkness. Chong goes behind the headlines to bring Rumana Monzur’s story to the masses and show that there are no typical victims of intimate-partner violence.

Brown Boy By Omer Aziz

As a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy, Aziz wrestles with the contradiction of feeling like an Other and his desire to belong to a Western world that never quite accepts him. The result is an uncompromising interrogation of identity, family, religion, race, and class.

Bones of Belonging By Annahid Dashtgard

A critically acclaimed, racialized writer, Dashtgard writes with honesty and wry humour as she considers what it means to belong-to a country, in a marriage, in our own skin — and what it means when belonging is absent. Sharp, funny, and poignant stories of what it’s like to be a Brown woman working for change in a white world.

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 the70-year history of Filipino immigration to Canada.

Halal Sex By Sheima Benembarek

Benembarek aims to eliminate the taboo of sex in Muslim culture by interviewing a diverse group of Muslim people about a wide variety of sexual topics. With great care and thoughtfulness, she reveals a tapestry of diverse Islam and of individuals forging a path forward toward their own happiness and pleasure.

Have You Eaten? By Cheuk Kwan

Kwan’s majestic work of non-fiction tells the stories of Chinese restaurants from around the world. He describes the people behind the restaurants – families, entrepreneurs, chefs, labourers – and how they have survived and thrived as part of the Chinese diaspora.

Prisoner #1056 By Roy Ratnavel

An incredible immigrant story from a prominent Canadian Tamil who fled torture and imprisonment, arrived in Canada with $50 in his pocket, then rose from the mailroom to the executive suite of the country’s largest independent asset management company.

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.

Almost Brown By Charlotte Gill

An award-winning writer retraces her dysfunctional, biracial, globe-trotting family’s journey as she reckons with ethnicity and belonging, diversity and race, and the complexities of life within a multicultural household.

Gaman-Perseverance By Arthur Miki

A timely memoir that details the intense negotiations that took place in the 1980s between the Government of Canada and the National Association of Japanese Canadians to find resolution on the depravation of their basic human rights during and after World War II.

Download a PDF version of this booklist here.

The Lost And Found Department By Joy Kogawa

Kogowa’s profound work of spare, trenchant, and haunting poems lets us stay with the quietest qualities of beauty and the sublime. A career-spanning volume that brings together new and selected works by an iconic voice in Canadian literature.

Parasitic Oscillations By Madhur Anand

Anand’s second collection observes the fluctuation between the arts and the sciences, living between North American and Indian cultures, and examines contemporary environments through the lag effects of the past. An enlightening, thought-provoking, and beautiful work that both informs and questions.

Quiet Night Think By Gillian Sze

Sze’s latest book — written in the fever of early motherhood — collects both essays and poems. Taking its title from an eight century Chinese poem, the book asks questions about familial and artistic origins, identity, transformation, language, and culture.

You Still Look The Same By Farzana Doctor

Doctor is a novelist, activist, and psychotherapist who has written her first poetry collection about navigating mid-life as a queer woman of Indian descent. She writes with both humour and honesty about topics like breakups, sex, and love.

I Will Be More Myself In The Next World By Matsuki Masutani

In Masutani’s debut collection, his minimalist poems embrace with gentle and perceptive wit; aging, family, dreams, his Japanese roots, self-acceptance and life on Salt Spring Island. Poems rise tall like sunflowers, untangled and reflective, addressing marriage, Parkinson’s, Chemo and impermanence.

From The Shoreline By Steffi Tad-y

Poet Steffi Tad-y was raised in Manila and is now based in Vancouver; both these places infuse her poetry which reflects on kinship, diaspora, mental illness, and work. Despite some heavy topics, the poems show tenderness and revel in the beauty of mundane life details and acts of love.

A Year Of Last Things By Michael Ondaatjes

In his long-awaited return to poetry, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye to merge memory with the present. Sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, he examines how the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him.

The Good Arabs By Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

This genre-defying collection maps Arab and trans identity through the immensity of experience felt in one body, the sorrow of citizens let down by their countries, and the garbage crisis in Lebanon. It shows how we love amid dismay, adore the pungent and the ugly, and exist in our multiplicity across spaces.

Beast At Every Threshold By Natalie Wee

Memories become malleable, pop culture provides a backdrop to queer love, and folklore becomes a radical tool of survival in Wee’s wonderful collection. Beguiling and deeply imagined, Wee’s poems explore thresholds of marginality, queerness, immigration, nationhood, and self-reinvention through myth.

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.

Exit Wounds By Tariq Malik

Indian Canadian poet Tariq Malik investigates the idea of home in this debut poetry
collection. He writes about his family’s experiences of immigration, war, and
belonging. He uses Punjabi myth, allusions to current news, and Indigenous symbolism from his adopted home.

Burning Province By Michael Prior

This volume moves seamlessly between geographical and psychological landscapes,
grappling with cultural trauma and mapping out topographies of grief, love, and inheritance. Acerbic, moving, and astonishing, Prior’s second collection explores the impact of the Japanese internment upon his family legacy and his mixed-race identity.

Falling Back In Love With Being Human By Kai Cheng Thom

After a crisis in faith, Kai Chen Thom wrote these poems for
the outcasts she calls her kin, for people with good intentions who harm their own, and for racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. A transformative collection of love
letters that offer a path toward compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance.

My Grief, The Sun By Sanna Wani

From concrete to confessional poem, exegesis to erasure, the Missinnihe River in Canada to the Zabarwan Mountains in Kashmir, Wani undoes and complicates genre and gathers the world between the poet’s hands.

Download a PDF version of this booklist here

Ghost Town By Kevin Chen

This Taiwanese novel is told from the perspective of the living and the dead in different time periods. Chen, the main character, has been released from prison after being convicted of killing his boyfriend. He returns to his village, where his sisters and parents have gone, but their family history remains.

Cursed Bunny By Bora Chung

This Korean collection of short stories showcases a wide range of genres including horror, magical realism, science fiction, and fantasy. The book tackles themes of capitalism, patriarchy, womanhood, and gaslighting in Chung’s incisive and matter-of-fact prose.

Lake Like a Mirror By Ho Sok Fong

Fong is a Malaysian writer whose book of short stories focuses on the lives of women and the limitations they face due to the state and other powers beyond their control. One story is set amongst sleepwalkers at a Muslim rehabilitation centre, while another takes place in an illegal hair salon.

Grass By Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
A riveting new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. The eight masterful stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator: a lonely man.

All the Lovers in the Night By Meiko Kawakami

This feminist novel follows a Japanese freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties who decides to drum up the courage to change her dull, isolated life. As she embarks on her journey of self-discovery, though, distressing memories from her past resurface.

Concerning My Daughter By Kim Hye-Jin

An elderly mother lets her adult daughter move back into her apartment but can’t seem to reconcile who her daughter is with her vision of a successful woman. Told from the mother’s perspective, the novel investigates contemporary LGBTQ+ lives in Korea as well as university activism.

Man Tiger By Eka Kurniawan

Man Tiger is an Indonesian novel featuring the intertwined lives of two families. At the story’s centre is Margio, who conceals within himself a supernatural white female tiger. An explosive act of violence is the catalyst for a revelation that changes the lives of both families.

Hangwoman By K.R. Meera

An epic, provocative coming-of-age story set in India, Hangwoman follows Chetna, who comes from an illustrious family whose pride is the “family business” of being hangmen. The first woman to take the job, Chetna steps into her position with an acute sense of its moral implications.

Life Ceremony By Sayaka Murata

From the author of Convenience Store Woman comes a new collection of short stories that expertly blend humour and horror. Not for the squeamish, these stories are set in contemporary or future Japan or alternate realities. They addresses topics of sex, friendship, food, and more.

Bright By Duanwad Pimwana

The first novel by a Thai woman to be translated into English, Bright is a sweetly melancholic story about Kampol. Kampol is a young boy who, left behind by his parents in an impoverished community, has to fend for himself. The focus is on his interactions with others and the care and help they provide despite their own troubles.

Tomb of Sand By Geetanjali Shree

This winner of the International Booker Prize is an engaging story about an 80-year-old woman who gains a new lease on life after her husband’s death. She surprises her daughter by her new friendship with a trans woman and by initiating a trip to Pakistan to confront her memories of Partition.

Chinatown By Thuân

Chinatown is a Vietnamese novel centred on a woman as she reflects on her life. She sits in a subway car with her son and remembers her childhood in communist Hanoi, studying in Leningrad, and immigrating to Paris. The one constant is her passion for Thuy, the father of her child whom she hasn’t seen in 11 years.

All That is Gone By Pramoedya Ananta Toer

A classic of Indonesian literature, this book of short stories dates back to the mid 20th century. Toer writes about a country and its people haunted by war and colonialism, but he provides a delicate balance of hope, despair, compassion, and a critical eye.

Strange Beasts of China By Ge Yan

Set in a fictional Chinese city, Yan’s playful novel is about an amateur cryptozoologist whose task it is to document the “beasts” with green skinthat live among humans. Straddling the line between magical realism and fantasy, the book asks deep questions about the divide between humans and animals.

The Way Spring Arrives Edited By Chen Yu and Regina Kanyu Wang

This anthology of Chinese science fiction and fantasy by women and nonbinary authors showcases the breadth and depth of contemporary speculative writing in China. In one story, roses perform Shakespeare; in another, dragons are hunted in a dystopia.

Download a PDF version of this booklist here

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.

Powell Street Diary By Jesse Nishihata

The posthumous diary of a Canadian filmmaker, this book portrays life in Vancouver’s Japantown before World War Two, and the eventual internment of all Japanese Canadians. It brings to life the history of a complex time, seen through the eyes of a child.

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.

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 Korean Cinema, Japanese Cinema, and Chinese 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!