After yesterday’s Dot Com Pho at Happy Pho, We headed across the Alex Fraser bridge and into Surrey for the Surrey Fusion Festival. This is Canada’s largest 3-day multicultural celebration with 40 international pavilions celebrating music, food and culture. An estimate 60,000 people visited the festival during its two day run at Holland Park.
Unlike the United States, which tries to be a melting pot, Canada celebrates its diversity. The Surrey Fusion Festival brings together many distinct cultural heritages represented by ethnic and community groups hosting pavilions to present the music, food, costume and dance of their country of origin.
This is the third year of the festival and it has done a great job on improving the image of Surrey, which used to be the butt of all jokes. In some ways, it still is but it’s getting much better. Mayor Dianne Watts has done a great job transforming the city of Surrey into the second largest city in BC. One thing for sure, she’s worlds better than that joke of Vancouver mayor, Gregor Robertson of the Visionless party.
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That looked great
Sally was cute 
Yup Looks really fun and Sally is always cute.
Wow this one is really colourful and lively.
True meaning of life.
It’s great that you guys are exposing her to multicuturalism (if this is a word) early on…
That sure does look like a lot of fun.
Super cute!!! Who painted the whiskers on? Was she trying to be a cat or some other animal?
Coast Capital (the one with the whale) had a face painting tent. Sally was a cat.
One little cute cat …
Seems like a lot of fun!!
I bet it is fun to experience many different cultures at one place.
Yes, it’s great you get the feel for what it’s like in so many different countries without any travel involved.
Awesome, this looks like a lot of fun and good times!
Wow turban tying demonstration … that is really interesting.
And a good time was had by all – a bit different to Surrey UK which is a whole county….. nice
how many countries were there?
I think 28 – 30 nations were there.
Right at the top of the post John says 40 international pavillions. That means 40 countries.
Go back and see for yourselves.
looks like quite a few!
I think there were 40.
Wow thats a lot of countries.
This looks like a great festival and a lot of fun. Its always good seeing and experiencing different cultures.
I love these kind of events. We had one in East London, UK, only the other week. I must have spent the best part of six hours there.
Yo John,
You are doing some good things for every day people, guess this is why success follows you.
Keep it up…
TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
That’s living the life of success.
Judging by the size of that police sign, i guess children get lost quite a bit there huh…
Or it could be because you’re in Surrey!
It’s kind of biased to say the US doesn’t celebrate cultural diversity.
While the US is very diverse, the gov policy is still the melting pot – making everyone into Americans. The US doesn’t have a dept. of multiculturalism. Canada does.
Valid point …
I definitely agree with d3so. You said the US tries to be a melting pot, not diverse. No offense, but the whole idea of a melting pot is that it is diverse. I’ve been to many multicultural festivals, and I’m sure the big cities are just as diverse as Canada. I mean, you really can’t call L.A. or NY not diverse. Sorry, just got to stick up for my country!
John was stating what the government policy has been historically.
There is diversity in both coutries of course but while in the USA it is spontaneous and not government supported in Canada the government actually gives money to support multiculturalism.
Both coutries are very diverse and everybody should be happy with that.
I absolutely love multi-cultural and multi-colored events, life would be so boring in only one color!
SY
Yes, I agree. It’s the reason why people like to travel.
They want to experience more variety.
Looks like a great time John.
John,
Thanks for sharing this awesome festival. It’s fun coming to your blog and learning about this cool stuff, in addition to making money online. Canada seems like a really great place to live.
All the best,
Ian
Yes its always nice to visit John blog … apart from lessons we do found –
Food (Only in photos) …
Great Place …
Humour and lot more
Hey John, as a fellow Canadian (Winnipeg), I’m glad you posted so much cultural and festive fun for your readers from other countries! It’s great for them to get an insight on what Canada is all about!
Looks like a blast! I’ve had so many friends that attended
Looks like fun.
Great picture of your daughter!