From: Citynews
“Chinatown is for everybody,” said Jimmy Chan, founder of the Montreal Chinatown Multicultural Festival, about the Drum for Unity festival celebrating the power of rhythm, inclusion and diversity. Gareth Madoc-Jones reports.
Posted May 17, 2025 6:01 pm.
Last Updated May 17, 2025 6:11 pm.
The Drum for Unity festival brought rhythm and energy to Sun Yat-Sen Park in Chinatown, as part of the fourth annual Montreal Chinatown Multicultural Festival.
“Drumming from the heart, every beat that you do is like sending a message out there,” said Jimmy Chan, founder and organizer of the Montreal Chinatown Multicultural Festival. “The drumming represents the first communication in humanity.”
Performers and drumming groups from around the world gathered to celebrate the power of rhythm as a universal language, promoting diversity, inclusion and cultural preservation. Represented cultures included Chinese, Caribbean, African, Filipino, Indian and Korean communities.
“You could bring drummers from different cultures and they could all find a way to harmonize their drums together as a way of communication,” said Matthew Chan, a performer with the Chinese Lion Dance. “As a way of just bringing in their cultures together like to represent the unity.”
Chan, who founded the festival, says inclusion is at the heart of the event’s mission.
“I want to make more diversity, inclusion,” Chan said. “It’s also inviting the different communities to come in like we have the Mauritius community coming in, the community from the Philippines and other areas.”
One of the festival’s highlights was the Chinese lion dance, accompanied by powerful drumbeats.
“The lion dance represents good luck, power, courage, all the powerful things that we need to succeed in life and that’s what the lion dance brings in,” said Chan.
Aldo Guizmo, a Montrealer originally from Guadeloupe and one of the festival’s musicians, emphasized the importance of shared spaces and cross-cultural celebration.
“In Montreal we can be together. That’s the point,” Guizmo said. “We can show everybody today that Chinatown, Chinatown, Montreal Chinatown it’s for Montreal and everybody can come. Everybody can share the space, you know.”
The Montreal Chinatown Multicultural Festival takes place each May as part of Asian Heritage Month. The event aims to showcase the richness of Asian and multicultural traditions through storytelling, dance and music.
Louese Hu, crowned Miss Chinese Montreal 2025, said she was glad to see the festival bringing energy and visibility to Chinatown.
“I’m very happy that people will come in and watch the cultural performances, to make Chinatown busy, to support the local businesses and they will just see how it shines and how fun Chinatown is,” Hu said.
For Jimmy Chan, the festival’s founder, the message is simple: unity.
“The beauty of it is everybody supporting each other,” he said. “We build a bigger and stronger community.”