Picture North American teens listening to the latest Chinese pop star instead of Avril Lavigne. Chinese movies sweeping up at the Oscars. The Robert Lepages of the world dethroned by world-class Chinese directors. Tickets to the Peking Opera selling out faster than Céline Dion’s latest tour.

If we’re to believe Claire Huot, a francophone Ontarian who has taught Chinese cultural studies, worked at the Canadian embassy in Beijing and mastered Cantonese, the next cultural invasion will come from China. “The country’s undergoing an incredible cultural effervescence,” she says. “If we want to stay relevant, we need to get to know this culture.”

Names to know: Mo Yan, Xu Bing, Jia Zhang-Ke and Cui Jian. The author of Big Breasts &Wide Hips: A Novel, Mo is tipped as a contender for the Nobel Prize. Xu exhibits his extraordinary installations in New York, London and Tokyo’s major ...