Crew

Kevin Li has been professionally employed in the broadcasting industry since 1998. Enrolling in BCIT's broadcasting program straight out of high school, Kevin started out volunteering at Daytime, a morning lifestyles show now known as Urban Rush. In 2000 Kevin became technical director at Fairchild Television, Canada's only national Chinese TV Station. During this time Kevin also helped produce Above and Beyond, an award-winning 26-episode documentary featuring the many diverse cultures of Canada.

Working at Fairchild Television, Kevin felt strongly that exclusively Chinese programming isolated majority of mainstream audiences, including Canadian born Chinese (CBCs) who could not speak the language. When Kevin went on to work as a news ENG operator at City TV in 2001, he further recognized a lack of understanding in mainstream media's coverage of Asian issues. Identifying this gap between Chinese and mainstream communities, an idea was formed to produce a show for Canadian born Asians who are "neither here nor there". Kevin envisioned this show as a happy medium for both mainstream audiences and new immigrants interested in learning about Asian culture and the Asian community in North America. In 2001, TV Fusion ran for 15 episodes on the multicultural channel as a test. Several years later, Kevin has taken the same idea to a more mainstream level in the form of Azn Lifestyles TV, a program dedicated to raising the profile of Asians in North America and easily accessible to the English-speaking audience. He also strongly believes in creating balance on TV for ourselves rather than waiting for mainstream media to figure it out.

Kevin also began Little Ram Productions Inc., an advertising agency that helps non ethnics tap into the ethnic market through TV.

Kevin also enjoys chinese lion dancing and performs annually during Chinese festivities and takes regular trips to China to learn more about his heritage. In 2006, he has spent 3 months in Beijing learning Mandarin.

Nelson Wong was once asked "if you love watching TV so much, why don't you work in it?" and that's exactly what he's doing. Born and raised in Vancouver, Nelson is a graduate of the BCIT Television Production program and is currently a freelance news cameraman and studio assist for City TV, Global TV, Fairchild TV and other local production houses. Nelson has even worked the Gemini Awards and Miss Chinese Vancouver Pageants.

Nelson first met Kevin Li when Nelson was an intern at City TV back in 2003 and Kevin took him to a Surrey crack house as his first News ride along. During the ride out, Kevin was telling Nelson about some crazy TV show featuring Asian North American pop culture. As a Canadian Born Chinese, Nelson realizes that Asians can be misrepresented in the media. Something needed to be done to help bridge the gap and allow non Asians to better understand the Asian North American culture. Eventually Nelson volunteered countless hours to make this show happen and on many days, he was just paid with a bowl of Pho even though that was not his food of choice.

Katrina Peralta is the definition of your not so average Asian girl. Katrina, who was born in the Philippines (yes, she’s “Fresh off the Boat”) came to Canada with her parents at the curious age of 3. Coming to Canada at such a tender age made it easy for Katrina to grow up and quickly adapt to changes of the fast-paced westernized world. Leaving her with knowing little about her cultural history and language, her parents, who are both originally from the Philippines, were also forced to catch up on the ways of raising children in Canada, leaving a part of their upbringings behind. Katrina will however admit, when it came to discipline, her parents never lost sight of their roots. Yikes! Growing up she often dedicated her time into friendships, played like the boys when it came to sports and grew up realizing she can’t sing whatsoever but enjoyed to dance and joined her high school’s hip hop dance squad! It was after high school and the (countless nights of studying…wink wink) that the “Filipino Dream” of becoming a nurse was nipped in the bud (sorry Mom & Dad)! Katrina quickly grew a passion for Broadcasting. While finishing up a few Broadcast Journalism courses at BCIT, she also applied for Columbia Academy’s (Entertainment and Communications Training) Broadcast Competition and received a 2nd place scholarship which has helped her successfully achieve a post-secondary Diploma in Broadcasting. It was with the right training and anticipation to experience more, that led her the abundant opportunity with AznLifestylesTV.

Kent Leung is in many ways the embodiment of what it means to be a CBC (Canadian born Chinese). Both his parents were originally from Hong Kong but Kent grew up most of his life in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Graduating from a high-school that was predominantly Caucasian, Kent grew up knowing little of his Chinese heritage. Fortunately, at a young age he was forced into a weekly Chinese class, so both his culture and language was not completely lost to him. In his young adulthood he graduated with a degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia and throughout his college days he bboy’d as often as he could. Nowadays, Kent still loves to dance, and also enjoys snowboarding, exercising at the gym and having bubble tea with friends (he’s working on that Chinese heritage thing). If you ever get a chance to meet him, you will quickly realize that he’s very down-to-earth and sincere. His one celebrity idle is Ryan Reynolds and if you give him any chance, Kent is more than willing to explain to you why. Having been a chubby kid growing up, Kent is now a big advocate for living a healthy lifestyle that includes lots of exercise rather than excessive dieting. In the past few years he has transformed his once “rolly polly” self into a model’s physique, which he has showed off in several amateur fashion shows. In fact, it was from one of these shows that Kevin Li, the creator and producer of Azn Lifestyles TV, “discovered” Kent and jump-started his career into show business.

Vinh began his career straight out of High School where he started off volunteering for a Local TV station in Vancouver. In 2000, he enrolled into BCIT’s Broadcast Television Program studying various aspects of the industry. Hungry to get out on his own and do whatever it takes to gain experience in the industry, Vinh found himself working at many different companies in a variety of roles. After graduating from BCIT, Vinh found his true calling in his love for Editing. Since then Vinh has become an Editor for a local TV station and continues to work on various projects including Aznlifestyles TV. Vinh is proud to be an Editor for Aznlifestyles TV where he has the chance to generate stories profiling Asians in a positive light. Vinh continues to learn about the art of Editing and knows that his passion will never cease. You can go as far as your creativity takes you.

The Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT) is a non-profit organization motivated to stage Asian-Canadian productions. As an ethnic theatre company in Vancouver, our mandate is to provide performance opportunities for Asian-Canadian actors, to reclaim the Asian stereotypes, to stage productions that provide non-stereotypical roles for Asian-Canadian actors, to showcase Asian-Canadian cultural themes/stories and to represent the hyphenated Asian on stage in a contemporary setting.

In the past 10 years, VACT has produced over 27 productions and has developed an Asian Canadian theatre community and audience in Vancouver. Most recently VACT produced Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple with Chinese subtitles to encourage ESL audience members to attend English speaking theatre. VACT’s signature event is its annual comedy nights which have become an underground cult phenomenon. Although VACT's mandate is to cater to Asian Canadians, VACT's audiences also include non-Asian patrons and reflect the true diversity of the city of Vancouver and Canada's multiculturalism.

Christine Lee was born in Singapore to Taiwanese-American parents. She spent a year in Taiwan and the rest of her childhood years in Singapore till age 13 when she immigrated to Vancouver. Growing up in a conservative home and trained under Asia’s strict educational system, Christine experienced intense culture shock upon arriving “fresh off the boat” and struggled to find her place in Canada’s liberal and individualistic society.

Through this process Christine stayed true to her passion for reading and writing and is currently a 4th year Communications major at Simon Fraser University. Christine actively seeks to expand her bicultural understanding and global experiences; since starting university she has participated in a cultural program in China, volunteered at orphanages in Beijing and studied and taught English in Korea.

Christine is proud of her Asian roots and has put her Mandarin skills to good use in Vancouver translating for an overseas production company, volunteering at a Chinese broadcasting company and working at SFU International as the China Initiatives Assistant. Stumbling upon Azn Lifestyles TV, Christine jumped at the chance to help with a show raising the profile of Asians in North America and is excited to join the crew as associate producer.