Fanshawe hosts tea tasting for Asian Heritage Month

Asian Heritage Month display at Fanshawe Library Learning Commons CREDIT: ALEX ALLAN
Asian Heritage Month is ongoing until the end of May.

The Fanshawe Library is holding multiple activities for students to celebrate Asian Heritage Month.

On May 17, a tea tasting event was held. This free event included Asian tea tasting that is part of the culture and custom of Asian countries. Some of the teas available were Oolong tea, green tea and other traditional Asian teas.

Fanshawe Librarian Technologist Emmalyn Latigay said that even though this is a big tradition around Chinese culture, it has grown in popularity around the world.

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“We believe that tea is the process of spiritual enjoyment, an art, means of refreshing and nourishing the mind,” Latigay said.

You could enjoy creating origami at the event. They provided directions that you can follow along to help create your own origami and you could leave it in the basket at the table where they will be putting on display. The students were also able to learn about the history of Asian Heritage while interacting at the event. According to Fanshawe college statistics, around 85 per cent of international students are from Asia at Fanshawe and about 6,800 students arrived or will arrive at Fanshawe college in 2023. The statistics also showed that more than 110 countries study at Fanshawe and the college welcomed more than 7,800 international students in 2023 from Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Europe. 

The event also had an area to learn about faces of racism. Text was displayed on t-shirts that went into explanations about signs to look out for when someone might be facing racist comments. They also created a whole section about the Wonders of Asia. This section categorized each country in Asia from the North, East, South and West. Each country had a QR code beside it that you could scan and learn a significant piece about the country. For example, if you scanned the QR code from Cyprus it would tell you all about their famous Halloumi cheese that they make in their country.

Around 20 to 30 people showed up to the library either just to grab a tea or even sit and study. Asian Heritage Month is ongoing until the end of May.