Interesting and Fun Things
Cleveland Asian Festival
East 30th and Payne Ave. May 18, 2025
The 2025 Cleveland Asian Festival (CAF) attracted over 44,000 visitors over May 17 and 18, 2025. There were performances, lots of food, cultural information and more including information and community resources. Here are a few of the interesting and fun things at CAF.
Johnny Wu is co-founder and co-producer of the Festival but also performed in the Colors of Asia Fashion Show and Cosplay event. He wore a Ming Dynasty era suit of armor from China that weighs about 30 lbs. You can see the fish scale protection and the lions on the chest and shoulders. Watch as Johnny talks about the armor.
The annual Trivia Contest was a lot of fun - especially the strange answers from the CAF mascots. Spoiler Alert - the Mascots did not win.
CAF Trivia Contest
CAF Mascots and Lynna Lai in Trivia Contest
One of the vendor displays was Messed Comics. We spoke with Jay B. Kalagayan, the writer and publisher of Creative Mussel. Jay is a Filipino-American creator, entrepreneur, non profit fundraiser and arts advocate in Cincinnati for the last twenty seven years. The Untold Story of Vincent Manago Hambright is brought to life in this graphic comic book. In the late 1920s, Vincent Manago Hambright, "The Filipino Assassin," boxed his way to fame in the Midwest. This graphic comic book charts his rise, military service, and tragic death in 1946, highlighting the struggles of Filipino Americans against racial prejudice. Jay said that his murder was one of the first documented Asian hate crimes in Cincinnati. MeSseD Comics creators Jay B. Kalagayan and Dylan Speeg, in collaboration with public historian James Tecco, are bringing Hambright's forgotten story to light, aiming to inspire future generations and preserve this historical narrative. Watch.
Did you know that you can get a free smoke detector installed in your home? We didn't either until we spoke with a firefighter at CAF. One of the resource displays was from Cleveland Fire working with the Red Cross. Across the country, the Red Cross is partnering with local fire departments and community groups to install smoke alarms in neighborhoods with high numbers of home fires. The goal is to reduce deaths and injuries from home fires by as much as 25 percent over the next five years.
Smoke alarm installations are available for homes in Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties. More information.
To promote the sport of amateur dragon boating, through practice and competition locally and to support regional, national and international dragon boating;
To provide a social and recreational opportunity for residents of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio;
To offer recreational team-building opportunities for participating individuals and organizations;
To provide training and fitness opportunities for cancer survivors by providing paddling opportunities to individuals and organizations;
To develop and implement programs for youth to socialize in a structured environment;
To encourage cross-culture awareness by educating the public about the history of the sport and other activities.
We also caught up with Ryan Cermak at the Morgan Conservatory booth. Morgan Conservatory is a 501(c)3 non-profit and the largest arts center in the United States dedicated to every facet of papermaking, book arts and letterpress printing and to cultivating the talents of established and emerging artists. Ryan was showing some of the many steps that go into the art of papermaking - in particular Japanese paper making - which begins with growing certain plants to produce specific fibers.
We also caught up with Kevin from Lubrizol. Kevin was doing a Community Chemistry Demo for kids and others. He poured some milk (representing fat) onto a plate and then added some color dies. The die did not disperse very much or fast but when he added just a touch of soap that allowed the chemical to mix and also disrupted the surface tension of the milk so it spread fast. Sorry about the background noise.
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