Multicultural Festival 2011: June 30 - July 3, 2011

The largest multicultural festival of its kind in Atlantic Canada, the annual RBC Multicultural Festival aims to give Nova Scotians an opportunity to explore the cultures of the world in Halifax, through music, dance, exhibits, crafts and food.

At its new location at the Halifax Seaport for the second year, the organizers were expecting such a large turnout, that they opened the festival one evening earlier than usual this time.

As anyone who's known me longer than a week will attest, I love food. And more than food, I love exotic food from around the world. The more eyeballs, testicles, and spices, the better!

Now, there weren't any balls of any kind this year (except for falafel), but there was enough chickpea and chicken to feed an army. I have a theory on this. It seems to me that it takes a special type of Western mentality to waste valuable land raising beef, when you could raise about a hundred chickens for the same price, in the same space.

This seems to be why many of the exciting cultures - where there have been enough people in a close enough space for a long enough time to actually have a unique culture - eat chicken. I'm sure you'll see my theory in textbooks within the next few years.

As a special treat, this year the African Diaspora Association of the Maritimes was serving up Ethiopian food (or a version of it). I was pretty excited about this because I've been trying to get my hands on some injera (moist, spongy, yeast-risen flat bread) again for more than five years now. Also, since I know you're wondering, "diaspora" is the African equivalent of "ex-pat."

With my belly happy, I went off to enrich my mind at the various cultural exhibits. Above, you can see me proudly displaying my recently acquired Taiwanese heritage.

At the Chinese Association of Nova Scotia's booth, I started a small trend (among those around me) by having the woman in yellow write out my name in Chinese. I also drank some Chinese oolong tea prepared traditionally (it involves a lot of theatrics, but still tastes like tea in the end.)

If I wasn't drinking tea, I was making friends. Here you can see Alexandra, from Russia, who was actually visiting Canada for about ten days and came to help out at the Russian Association booth. Additionally, I found the only set of straw woven, Russian-style sandals in Halifax here.

While I didn't get to see much of the cultural performances (technical difficulties), I did manage to sneak myself into an African dance workshop. A few eager young volunteers decided to give it a go on stage as well (future EPs, for sure.)

RBC Multicultural Festival: July 2-4, 2010

With over 500 performers and 20 000 visitors expected to attend, the three day RBC Multicultural Festival in Halifax is the largest of its kind in Atlantic Canada. It features dancing, music, food and drink from all over the world, as well as craft vendors and information booths about some of the various cultures on display. And as an added bonus, this year it also included beautiful, sunny weather.

In this, the 26th year, the festival moved to a new location just across the street from Pier 21, the newly honoured National Immigration Museum for Canada. It was a fitting move, and good timing, as Pier 21 saw 60 new Canadians sworn in as citizens just two days prior, on Canada Day.

(Every young boy's fantasy: being able to wash his own life-sized Hot Wheels car.)

(Members of the Korean drum team, A-ri-rang, perform a surprisingly energetic traditional drum number. This was one of the most entertaining performances of the whole day, and by far the most enjoyable traditional Korean music performance I've ever seen. In an interesting aside, a group of a dozen doctors from South Korea were on a cruise ship coming in to Halifax this day. The doctors had heard about the festival and phoned the organizers to explain the situation. The event organizers were able to schedule this performance during the time the ship would be in port, at Pier 21 just 50 metres from the festival grounds.)

(A member of A-ri-rang performing a traditional long ribbon dance.)

(The Scotia Cuties and the RCMP Highland Dancers performing traditional Scottish dancing.)

(The girls from the Fitzgerald School of Irish Dance performing on the Main Stage.)

(Anyone who has taken a University dance class probably remembers doing this dance, the Tinikling, from the Philippines.)

(The highlight of the day for me was definitely this group called Grupo Folklorico Viva Mexico. This performance had excellent music, excellent costumes, and lots of energy. Everybody wins!)

(Traditional clothing/costumes from, top to bottom, Portugal, Iran, Russia, South Korea, and Malaysia.)