Happy Dragon Boat Festival 端午節 (Duan Wu Jie Kuai Le)! The Double Fifth Festival holiday is celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th month of the Lunar calendar, which is today, May 31, 2025. ![]()
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Families would gather and eat (or make) zongzi together and watch dragon boat races. ![]()
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This year, the Cleveland Dragon Boat Association will host the 2025 Dragon Boat Festival on Saturday, September 6, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Cuyahoga River at Merwin's Wharf. For more information, visit www.cledba.org. ![]()
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Zongzi, sticky rice dumplings, are traditionally made with a variety of meats and proteins. Vegan options are available at Bodhi Express and KOKO BAKERY. ![]()
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If you would like to learn how to make Zongzi/Joong/Bahtzhang (Sticky Rice Dumplings), here's a video from Ice or Rice. ![]()
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr27WHPH--o
We appreciate the Cleveland Guardians for hosting the inaugural Asian American & Pacific Islander Resource Fair at Progressive Field on Friday, May 30. We are excited to participate in honoring and supporting the AAPI community. ![]()
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#AAPIHeritageMonth
Kicking off her book tour for "Mapping AsiaTown Cleveland: Race and Redevelopment in the Rust Belt," author and historian Rebecca Jo Kinney, together with ThirdSpace Action Lab, hosted an engaging conversation about the vibrant growth of Asiatown Cleveland last night, May 29. Joining Rebecca were Cleveland Asian Festival Co-founder and life-long Clevelander Lisa Wong; Cleveland Foundation Chief Impact Officer and the first AAPI staff to join MidTown Cleveland, Inc. (MTC) in 2016, Joyce Huang; and Third Space Senior Fellow Karis Tzeng, who became MTC's first AsiaTown Initiative lead in 2019. The four women shared their experiences and insights on the development of AsiaTown, tying them to the book's coverage of the era from the 1940s to present day.![]()
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A focus of the conversation was the Cleveland Asian Festival and its impact on the community. Rebecca shared that her original book plan was to cover several Midwest Chinatown and AsiaTown communities, but after attending the festival and connecting with local residents in 2016 during her research, she was inspired to focus solely Cleveland's AsiaTown, due to the enthusiasm and spirit displayed by so many of the community stakeholders - many of whom volunteer tirelessly to nurture and grow the community.![]()
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Bravo to Rebecca and the panelists for such a compelling event and for helping to preserve and amplify the history of AsiaTown Cleveland!![]()
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#AAPI #AAPIHeritageMonth #AAPIHM #caf2025cle #AsiaTownCLE #thisiscle #TheLandForLife
Join author Melody Chu, Saturday, May 31 at 3 p.m. at YYTime (3004 Payne Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114) to celebrate the launch of her debut novel, Mathey Girls. This contemporary, heartfelt novel follows a group of college friends who stay in touch over decades of weddings, divorces, kids and moves, centering on one summer when they must face their biggest challenge, the death of a friend. Now in their late 30s, they met as undergrads at Mathey (matt-ee), their Princeton dorm. Rooted in Melody Chu’s experience at Princeton and her own WhatsApp “Mathey” chat, the novel delicately navigates grief, midlife, parenting and career disillusionment. With an uplifting ending after a summer of second chances, this love-letter to old friends is perfect for book clubs.![]()
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Melody, born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, is the daughter of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan. She grew up on Cleveland’s West Side and crossed the river for high school at Hathaway Brown. After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, she practiced law in Hong Kong and Beijing for ten years, before returning to the U.S. to work for her firm’s New York office. In 2021, Melody decided to leave big law firm life and pursue her dream of writing novels with complex Chinese American characters. Today, Melody lives in Shaker Heights with her husband and three children, who attend Shaker public schools. She is currently working on her next novel, an AAPI domestic dramedy.![]()
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Melody’s book launch celebration is set for the last day of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, in Cleveland’s AsiaTown at YYTime, where guests will get to taste some of the foods deliciously described in Mathey Girls in the trendy 10,000-square-foot food hall. Grab a crisp scallion pancake or slurp a sweet bubble tea with fellow book-lovers and supporters of the Cleveland writing scene. Author reading and Q&A will begin at 3:30, followed by a book signing and refreshments.![]()
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Mathey Girls is available to purchase at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BookShop.org and to borrow from the Shaker Heights Public Library. Copies will be in circulation in the Cuyahoga County Public Libraries and for sale at Coventry’s Mac’s Backs and Larchmere's Loganberry Books soon. Copies of Mathey Girls will be available to purchase at the book launch event.