A date to mark on the world's calendar is summer of 2005, when Aichi, Japan, will host the next World's Fair. World fairs are an excellent way to express the issues and aspirations of their day. Because they attract millions of visitors, they are also a means of exchanging ideas or of exploring themes of concern to the contemporary world. Canada's participation in Aichi, for example, will focus on the theme of "the wisdom of diversity." It is an idea that many Canadians believe is at the heart of the Canadian identity.

While fairs are an "organized" way of exchanging ideas, cultural exchanges happen at many levels and are often driven by simple curiosity. Before air travel and mass media, people relied on travel to distant lands to bring about a meeting of cultures. Among the foreigners abroad were explorers, conquerors and colonizers, as well as traders, missionaries and artists. In such times, the "far east" indeed seemed worlds apart from our own.

Not so today. With the ease of travel and communication of the Internet, and with the emergence of global markets and global products—even global celebrities—Asian influences in our culture and our daily lives abound.