LINDORK x ZEN LION DESIGN – Asian Heritage Month 2025 Collection

By Linda Hoang

I’m thrilled to reveal the 2025 edition of my Asian Heritage Month clothing collaboration with Edmonton business Zen Lion Design!

Like previous collaborations, the 2025 Asian Heritage Month Collection is a partnership with Sherrell of Zen Lion Design, aimed at celebrating Asian culture, increasing visibility, pride and representation, and tackling anti-Asian racism while supporting Asian-owned initiatives.

This year there are nine designs to choose from, and 20% of proceeds from the 2025 LINDORK x Zen Lion Deisgn Asian Heritage Month Collection will be donated to support the inaugural year of FascinAsian Film Festival – Edmonton May 9-11, 2025.

This volunteer-run, not for profit event is dedicated to sharing Asian-centered stories on the big screen! I’m part of volunteer organizing team, and we’re really excited to screen four feature films and 15 short films as part of the first-ever event May 9-11 at Landmark Cinemas downtown.

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Learn more about the FILM festival

PRE-ORDER!

Orders of the collection placed by May 4, 2025:

Guaranteed Edmonton / local pickup or shipped by May 11.

REGULAR ORDERS

Orders placed after May 4, 2025:

Please allow up to 3 weeks for fulfillment.

The collection will be available for purchase throughout May 2025.

You can get these designs in all sorts of colours – Black, White, Ash Grey, Sand, Light Pink, Pine, or my two signature ‘LINDORK’ colours: Bright Pink and Golden Yellow! And as size S-3XL Hoodies, Crewnecks, T-Shirts or Kids T-Shirts (select sizes).

BROWSE & SHOP THE 2025 COLLECTION

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada and AAPI (Asian Pacific American / Pacific Islander) Month in the United States.

Sherrell of Zen Lion Design and I first started our AHM collaboration back in 2022, following the significant rise in Anti-Asian hate crimes in North America as a result of the pandemic.

We’ve released an annual collection with updated designs (and returning favourites) each year since! It’s been amazing to see the support for these items—especially seeing them out in the wild.

The Asian Heritage Month Collection includes statements, phrases, or illustrations of Asian-related things or thoughts that I personally love or love to bring attention to. Sherrell is a talented designer who brings these ideas to life and her Zen Lion Design local business is a wonderful platform to bolster Asian pride and anti-racism not just this month but year-round.

The Edmonton-based, Black, woman-owned business specializes in “Clothes that create a Conversation” (or “comfy statement apparel”). It’s diverse and inclusive. And I’m grateful we can use the collection to spark that conversation and pride in Asian Heritage but also raise money for Asian-led initiatives. Each year, Sherrell really brings the statements to life with her designs.

You can read more from Sherrell’s perspective partnering on the Asian Heritage Month collaboration over on her blog! (This was written during the launch of the 2024 collection).

There are nine statements/designs to choose from and they all have special meaning to me (and probably to you! That’s the nice part about representation, highlighting our similar experiences, stories, feelings).

The majority of statements are meant to be worn by Asian people, however there are intentionally included designs that anyone can wear as well!

Shop the LINDORK x ZEN LION DESIGN 2025 Asian Heritage Month Collection

These are limited time items so if you think you want one, get one as they may not come back after May. I regularly get asked where I got certain items I wear from previous collections and I tell them unfortunately they can’t get it but maybe it will be a returning favourite design during AHM.

Thank you for your support!!

Check out the 2025 Asian Heritage Month Collection statement pieces and their meaning below, and shop these items on Zen Lion Design!

Asian Actresses

Hi, these Asian women raised me lol.

But in all seriousness, previous Asian Heritage Month collections have included some form of representation matters, language or design, and this is kind of an ode to that. I don’t even think I realized growing up what it meant for me to see women who looks like me on the big or small screen, or represented in books or other popular culture. Reflecting back now as an adult, I totally see how these different women, characters, storylines, and simply just seeing women in popular culture, in media and arts, shaped me. That’s powerful!

The alternate title for this design was “They Raised Me” lol.

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In The Mood for Noods

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably always In the Mood for Noods! And based on previous collection performance and the amount of people who bought and loved this design, you are! lol.

Sometimes I literally cannot function without a splash of broth and a mouth full of noodles.

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Rice is Life

A returning favourite phrase with updated design is an ode to something my mother has been telling me from a young age, and still reminds me to this day—the idea that if you don’t have rice with your meal, you won’t be full. lol. This is engrained (lol grain) in me!!

Now an inside joke with friends and family who I’ve shared this too—if we’re eating something and it doesn’t include rice, someone inevitably says—well, I guess we’re not going to be full then. Ha ha!

Growing up, my parents would get home from work late and we would always gather for a really late dinner. Every dinner included rice (this is just a general Vietnamese family rule lol). I have some pretty fond memories of these late night meals over rice with my family, so not only is the Rice is Life design a nod to my mother and her very true statement that you need rice to fill your tummy, but it also is an ode to all the Asian family dinners that would be incomplete without that bowl of rice.

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Soy Into You

Similar sentiments as with Rice is Life, no bowl of rice for me is complete without soy sauce. For my family, that’s Maggi. (I know if you really get technical Maggi isn’t “soy sauce” it’s “seasoning sauce” but my family has always used Maggi as our soy sauce growing up and I carry that forward with me in my household and with my family today. So this is both an acknowledgement of one of the most iconic sauces—a staple really—in the world, but also we love a good pun, so this is a little playful around that. Wear it around someone you’re soy into!

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Bubble Tea is Life

Bubble tea designs have been a constant from Year 1 of this annual Asian Heritage Month collection!

It makes sense… who doesn’t love BBT?! These are some of our top-selling items! I personally average about 2 bubble teas a week and bubble tea shops are my preferred place to do computer work outside the home lol. Even my two-year-old son is already into bubble tea (it’s the sweetest when he says it!)

Imagine how fun it would be to pick up bubble tea while in your Bubble Tea is Life apparel? 🧋

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Powered by Bubble Tea

More bubble tea designs!🧋I mean I think this one is self-explanatory, especially after my little love letter to bubble tea with the Bubble Tea is Life design write-up above, lol. I know I mainly run on BBT and if you’re the same, you probably need this in your closet!

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We Belong Here

With the current political climate and all the unjust immigrant targeting and deportations, rise in discrimination and exclusionary legislation against minority groups in the U.S., I thought a message to reaffirm that immigrants, people of colour—and well, really any group being wrongfully attacked (which feels like so many and a new one each week under the Trump administration), deserve to exist and take up space here, was important. We do belong here.

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Chinatown Chow Down

This past year I launched a City of Edmonton Vibrancy Fund project called the Chinatown Chow Down, a food-focused initiative designed to make it easy for visitors to dine in and support Chinatown business owners by participating in Group Lunches, Group Dinners, Food Tours and a self-guided culinary passport challenge. It was an amazing experience bringing so many people together in Chinatown. The majority of people who came out to the restaurant events had never been to that particular restaurant before!

Chinatown is a really special place for me. I’ve spent the better part of my years here and today still visit weekly. My parents’ home and Vietnamese restaurant King Noodle House Pho Hoang, which has been operating for nearly 30 years, is still located in Chinatown.

Many Chinatowns—including Edmonton’s—is going through revitalization, and we need support from the community to ensure these special pieces of our cities don’t get forgotten.

I do think it’s powerful and meaningful when we can come together to try and uplift Chinatown. So this is a great reminder to anyone who wears it and sees it—support your local Chinatown and do it the way I love most—by chowing down!

The Chinatown Chow Down logo was designed by Edmonton, Asian artist Willa Kung!

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Asians for a Free Palestine

When this collection started, it was really important to me that the designs included powerful, Asian-centred messages that lived up to Zen Lion Design’s mission too—Clothes that Create a Conversation. I think we’ve done that really well over the last few years, through past phrases like PROUD TO BE AN IMMMIGRANT, STOP ASIAN HATE, DON’T ASK ME WHERE I’M FROM I’M FROM HERE, and more!

This year I knew this collection needed something around supporting Palestine.

Over the last year, Israel’s horrific genocide against Palestinians has been broadcast to the world. It’s sickening. It’s heartbreaking. It’s devastating. Speaking out about these atrocities is the very least I, or anyone can do. The world stands with Palestine and specific to this collection and this community, I wanted a piece that reflected that sentiment.

I think there are many parallels between Asian communities and Palestinians. Many Asian people have faced colonization, war, racism and displacement. That shared understanding of struggle and resilience makes this message even stronger but even without the parallels, it’s simply about being on the right side of humanity.

If you’re curious about the watermelon symbol, it has become a powerful symbol of Palestinian resistance and identity, born out of the banning and censorship of the Palestinian flag.

I hope you’ll wear this with me and continue calling for an end to arms funding, government and business support of Israel’s devastation, and a free Palestine in our lifetime.

Shop “ASIANS FOR A FREE PALESTINE” DESIGN

I hope you’ll join me for the fourth year in being loud about Asian culture and representation—with a little extra help from this Asian Heritage Month Collection statement apparel!