The Ottawa Chinatown Night Market ran from June 4-6
Lines stretched as far back as Bronson Avenue for squid teppanyaki, Xinjiang dance and other proud expressions of diverse heritage brought huge crowds to Chinatown this weekend for the second annual Ottawa Chinatown Night Market.
From June 4 to 6, the Night Market was a three-day gathering of vendors and performers in Ottawa’s Chinatown. There was a wide array of food made available including fried enoki, buchu buchingae, several kinds of skewers, grilled oyster, grilled quail eggs with shrimp and jianbing guozi. With all the options available, it is difficult to choose just one.
Starting out as smaller Asian food festivals in select parts of Ottawa, this year is the second time the Night Market is being hosted in Chinatown.
Yukang Li, the executive director of the Ottawa Chinatown Business Improvement Area (BIA) and organizer of the Night Market, explained the importance of the event and what it seeks to achieve.
“The reason that we are now hosting our own Chinatown Night Market is [because] we want to enhance the brand name and brand image of Chinatown as a destination for multicultural food, culture of course, and a shopping spot for people living in the city,” said Li.
This year was especially important in that, for the first time since the beginning of Ottawa’s irregularly-run Asian food festivals and the Night Market itself, over 50 per cent of the vendors are local Ottawa businesses.
The event showcased a wide variety of performances as well including Mexican dance, Peking Opera (a personal favourite), and Latin music.
Speaking to the significance of the event to the city of Ottawa and the community of Chinatown Li said, “I think for the Chinese community, the Ottawa Chinatown Night Market is an opportunity for us descendants of Chinese background to showcase and to celebrate our cultural heritages with the rest of Ottawa… It is this kind of multiculturalism and diversity…that have built Canada [into] a great country for all of us”.
