Even during his bachelor party in Ontario’s Muskoka region, Simu Liu had Markham on his mind.
Ahead of his wedding to fiancée Allison Hsu, the Marvel star stepped away from jet skiing and lake swims with friends this week to talk about bringing ARC World — the annual Asian Roots Collective festival — back to the Toronto suburb where it began.
The celebration of Asian culture — featuring food, music, speakers and a celebrity basketball game with Liu and former NBA star Jeremy Lin — returns Sept. 12 after recent editions in downtown Toronto.
“It’s such a big part of the Asian Canadian community,” Liu says of Markham.
“First of all, it’s got the best Chinese food in the country, in my opinion.”
Speaking over the phone while overlooking a Muskoka lake, Liu says coming to Markham is meaningful because it’s where the non-profit behind ARC World was born.
“We wanted to bring the event back to the community and back to its people, maybe avoid the traffic of downtown a little bit.”
Originally named the Chinese Canadian Youth Athletic Association, the Asian Roots Collective was founded in 1995 to provide basketball programming for Chinese Canadians. Today, it operates its own athletics centre in Markham and serves the broader Asian community.
The organization partnered with Liu in 2019 on a celebrity basketball game that raised money for the foundation led by Lin, then a member of the Toronto Raptors. The event has since evolved into a one-day festival celebrating Asian excellence across industries, bringing together athletes, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and chefs alongside local businesses and community organizations.
Liu says the larger goal is exposing young Asian Canadians to role models they might not otherwise encounter.
“An event like this is necessary today because I think you still have kids that grow up a little bit unsure of how to feel about their identity,” says Liu, who starred in 2021’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and will appear in this winter’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”
He says that’s especially important at a time when progress on representation can feel uncertain and “public opinion shifts as to whether or not support for marginalized communities is important.”
“There’s a lot of rhetoric that comes south of the border that unfortunately, because we’re so close by proximity, permeates into our discourse,” says Liu.
“It’s really important in those moments to just stand ten toes down and really support what you’re passionate about. And for me, I’m never not going to be Chinese, so this community is always going to mean a lot to me.”
Lin says a recent backlash towards diversity and inclusion efforts “is telling of the barriers we’re up against and why we need to continue to do this year in and year out.”