By Felix Hoover

For YourNewsColumbus.com

Posted 05-24-09

 

 

Several families at this year's Asian Festival made the trip so they and their family could get in touch with their heritage.

 

For Chau Nguyen that meant bringing sons Du, 19, and Nan, 15, from Rochester, Mich., to the 15th annual festival at Franklin Park.

 

"I wanted them to pick up on some of their Asian culture," she said. "They were born here."

 

Christian Coleman, 16, had come to see his cousin Xavier Adams perform in the Tae Kwon Do exhibition.

 

Various forms of martial arts have become mainstays of the festival, as have Asian dance, music and art.

 

Christeen Chappell, making her first appearance at the festival, exhibited handmade quilt art and demonstrated calligraphy at the booth she shared with jewelry artist Elaine Yang.

 

With carefully inked brush on rice paper, Chappell demonstrated two styles of calligraphy, artwise akin to print and cursive versions of names transliterated from English to Chinese.

 

Dr. Yung-Chen Lu, founder of the festival, was among speakers who acknowledged the event's ten-fold growth since its inaugural in 1995.

 

Dr. Alvin Jackson, director of the Ohio Health Commission, and State Sen. Ray Miller, chair of the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, were among many officeholders and other dignitaries on hand for the opening ceremony.

 

No doubt they would have loved to hear Lin Lin Xiao when she said, "The health screening was one of the reasons my mom came."

 

Xiao, a doctoral student in food science at Ohio State University, said her mother is on a three-month visit from China.

 

The health screenings were Western-based, but acupunture and alternative medicine were promoted at some of the vending and information stations.

 

Deborah Cox said that she usually attends the fesitval as a volunteer with the American Red Crossl, but wasn't asked to help this year.

 

Instead, she spent much of Saturday enjoying the entertainment, including the traditional Lion Dance and a procession of placard bearers from each of the Asian countries represented at the festival.

 

"This was my first time seeing the Lion Dance," Cox said.

 

She also was glad to attend a booksigning by noted author Amy Tan. During April and May, central Ohioans have been asked to read Tan's Joy Luck Club as part of The Big Read Columbus. The Big Read is an effort of the National Endowment for the Arts, along with the Institue of Museum and Library Sciences and Arts Midwest, to promoote reading as an important part of American culture.

 

Local partners in the project are the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Thurber House, the Asian Festival, WOSU Public Media and Ohio State University.

 

The two-day festival concludes on Sunday, May 24. Admission is free.