Asian Heritage Month Closing Cleveland City Hall May 29, 2026
On May 29, 2026 the City of Cleveland under the leadership of Asian Liaison Chia-Min Chen, hosted a closing event for Asian heritage Month in the Rotunda of City Hall. Participating groups were from Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
Chia-Min Chen welcomed the crowd and then introduced Cleveland City Councilman Tanmay Shah who gave his welcoming remarks.
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Cleveland City Councilman Tanmay Shah and Chia-Min Chen
Chia-Min Chen
Cleveland City Councilman Tanmay Shah
We visited all the displays and spoke with the representatives. At the Taiwan table, attendees also got to hear Janice Liu playing erdu.
Janice Liu playing erdu
At the Pakistan table we spoke with Nabeel Athar, VP of the Pakistani Cultural Garden at the Pakistan cultural display. One interesting item being displayed was about Truck Art. In Pakistan the trucks may be decorated with intricate and colorful details to draw attention and give a competitive edge. Watch Nabeel explain it.
At the Turkey table we sampled some strong but tasty Turkish coffee and learned a lot about the country that is half in Asia and half in Europe.
At the Palestine table we learned about a symbolic key. Sharee explained that the key was created as a symbol of hope in 1948 and worn by her grandparents and people of that generation. The key is a symbol of hope to return to their displaced homes. Watch.
At the Philippines table we visited with Rose Ferguson of the Philippine Nurses Association of Ohio and also the Filipino Cultural Garden in Cleveland. She said there are over 7,000 islands totaling an area about the size of the US state of Arizona with a population of about 113 million. She explained that after they were freed from Spanish rule and the US moved in, they used the same school curriculum as in the US and that is why there are so many US nurses of Filipino heritage - about 4% of all US nurses. She showed us where her father was from and then when the family moved to Manila. She also spoke about some of the different languages (including Spanish in Palawan) and religions (mostly Catholic in North and Muslim in South). Watch.
Rose Ferguson
Rose Ferguson with picture of her Dad
We spoke with Jak Saidov about his native Uzbekistan. Jak is founder of the Uzbek Cultural Garden in Cleveland and a leader in the community. We looked at the map and Jack explained that Uzbekistan is one of only two double landlocked countries in the world (the other is Liechtenstein). That means that it is surrounded by other landlocked countries even though they border the Caspian Sea which is actually a lake. Jack spoke of the Silk Road history and that silk and cotton are still big parts of Uzbekistan. It's about the size of California in area and is the most populous of the Central Asian countries with about 37 million people. Watch
Uzbekistan table
Uzbekistan cuisine
We also visited the Kazakhstan, Russian, Korean and Indonesian tables. Here are some photos.
Chia-min Chen, Oanh Loi-Powell, Aigerim Alibek, Jak Saidov and Tanmay Shah
Indonesia table
Indonesia
Russia table
Representing China, Kazakhstan and Pakistan
Chia-Min Chen at the Uzbek display
FICA (Indian) representatives
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