The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society (VAHMS) co-hosted a webcast of a nation-wide teleconference among Asian Heritage Month societies in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto to share expert speakers’ experiences in integrating Asian-Canadian content into Canada’s education system. This Vancouver panel features Dr. Ray Hsu, Tetsuro Shigematsu, Anna Ling Kaye, Cara Kauhane, and Joyce Lam.
Speakers’ Biographies
Dr. Ray Hsu has over ten years of experience providing awesomeness to clients, including the CBC, UBC, the National Arts Council of Singapore, and the Banff Centre. He is the author of two award-winning books and his writing has been published in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Singapore, and London. Dr. Hsu has also given talks on creativity, education, and leadership for over ten years, including interviews on CBC Radio One, Chicago Public Radio, and the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. His ideas take many forms: from writing books and headlining conferences to mentoring creative thinkers at retreats and seminars. He co-founded Art Song Lab, an interdisciplinary platform to create fusions across poetry, music, and performance. While teaching in a US prison for two years, he founded the Prison Writing Workshop, which showcased incarcerated writers and performers in print and on public radio.
Tetsuro Shigematsu is a Canadian radio broadcaster, comedian and filmmaker. He was the most recent host of CBC Radio One’s former afternoon series The Roundup, where he replaced Bill Richardson in 2004, making him the first visible minority to host a daily network radio program in Canada. The show completed its final episode on November 4, 2005. Prior to working for CBC Radio, he was a writer for the Canadian TV show This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Anna Ling Kaye’s journalism has appeared in the International Herald Tribune and Caijing Magazine, amongst others. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies in Hong Kong and Vancouver. Having lived in more than ten cities including Beijing and Mumbai, she is now an enthusiastic Vancouver-ite.
Cara Kauhane graduated from Capilano University with an Associate of Arts in Creative Writing, and is currently a creative writing and anthropology student at UBC. She has been published in Capilano University’s magazine The Liar.
Joyce Lam is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT). She has produced over 40 productions with VACT and has recruited, developed and maintained a body of volunteers that has sustained its operations for 13 years. Joyce created VACT to showcase Asian Canadian actors, tell Asian Canadian stories and address their conspicuous absence on the Canadian stage.