When it comes to community, Joyce Liu aims to build bridges and give back to a city brimming with generosity — and food, she’s found, has been a major vehicle for creating change in Halifax.
She’s one of the masterminds behind Off The Eaten Path, a platform focusing on showcasing the local international community through food. Since 2021, it has been running Taste Asia: Halifax Asian Food and Culture Festival, creating a space for local immigrants to present their food, businesses and talents on the city’s waterfront.
This year’s event ran from May 17 to 20 around Foundation Wharf, where more than 50 vendors welcomed tens of thousands of people with Asian food, crafts, fashion and performance. Held over Victoria Day long weekend in Halifax, people were given a taste of cultures from countries like China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and more.
“We’re really pushing the boundary this year of what we can do. … We’re literally exploring a relationship with the community,” Liu, a co-founder of Lumi Studios in Halifax, said. “What can we do community wise? How diverse, also inclusive, can we be on this piece of land right at the Halifax waterfront?”
Now on its fourth year, the event saw a wide range of street-style foods, featuring treats like Japanese fish-shaped pastries from Cafe Taiyaki 52, Korean fried chicken from Young Pocha Korean BBQ, Vietnamese noodle dishes from Pho Maniac and Korean hot dogs from The Kon Dog. Several vendors also brought a variety of bubble tea flavours, Filipino favourites and Middle Eastern delights, among other decadent dishes from Asia.
Starting this festival was an idea that began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, after Liu stumbled upon restaurants in Spring Garden Place’s basement food court. She was shocked to discover several immigrant-owned restaurants that were hidden only steps away from one of the busiest streets in Atlantic Canada.
Initially, the event was run by a smaller team, where Liu said no one had background experience in event planning at this scale. Instead, it was a project driven by a passion to do something for the community and help promote local Asian businesses. Now, Liu said so many people have gotten involved to help run the event, adding it’s likely the festival could run entirely without her — a far departure from what it was in its inaugural year.
Back then, she recalled the team put a lot more effort in rounding up local vendors, pleading with people to trust their vision for the event. More than 20 local businesses signed up that year; it was a great sense of trust from the community that Liu said she was grateful for. But after a few years of successful festivals, more local vendors have been willing to set up shop, allowing Liu and her team to focus on new initiatives like performances and a live cooking event.
“None of this could’ve happened without the money from sponsorships, the support from food vendors and, also, the hype from foodies that all come and create content for us on social media,” she said. “This, to me, is community.”
While this year’s event might’ve seemed grandiose, Liu said it was accomplished on an extremely tight budget and the generosity of volunteer support. In the future, she said she hopes the government can lend a helping hand.
“We haven’t really been getting any government funding,” she said. “We feel we should be with this amount of people we’re attracting. … If we’re doing it in mind with public holidays across four days, we want more help from the government or city.”
Speaking to several politicians one day, including Halifax Mayor Mike Savage, Minister of Advanced Education Brian Wong, Coun. Pam Lovelace and MP Andy Fillmore, Liu said things seemed positive: There was a consensus amongst the group that this festival needs to become a signature event in Halifax.
But going forward, Liu said she also wants input from the local community on ideas for future iterations of the event in hopes of making even more immigrants in the city feel welcome. Liu is an immigrant herself, moving to Halifax 12 years ago from China to pursue a degree in community planning from Dalhousie University. While all her peers didn’t think she’d stay in the city, she said there’s a sense of comfort to Halifax that’s made her stick around.
“Halifax is very special. It’s a generous city, it’s a kind city,” she said. “The first step, I learned, is the kindness — and I’m trying to share that back with the community. … I see many new immigrants when they come, they don’t find a comfortness. Not because they don’t fit in the city, it’s just because they don’t know how. So, I hope us here, we can be a little window for them.”
