1 The featured country this year is South Korea, chosen because it’s the 40th year of Roanoke’s affiliation with sister city Wonju, South Korea. Executive Director Pearl Fu’s favorite Korean food is kimchi (spicy pickled Napa cabbage), which will be in abundance, as will Korean dancers and a fashion show featuring ethnic clothing from Korea. “When I first started asking people to wear ethnic clothing, they were trying to be so Westernized they didn’t have any,” Fu said. “Eventually, they started making ethnic clothes to wear for the festival, and now they’re really proud to show it off.”

2 What’s new with the festival, now in its 16th year? The Elmwood Park extravaganza is Saturday only with free activities during the day and live professional bands (with a $7 admission charge after 5 p.m.) at night — including the same New York-based reggae band that tore it up last year, Shayar and Krooshal Force. A record-breaking 80-plus countries will be featured, either as performers, booth operators or parade-marchers — and Fu swears she didn’t have to import them: Believe it or not, more than 80 different ethnicities really do live together below the neon star.

You just have to be Pearl Fu to know them all. Fu regularly approaches strangers at the mall if she hears an unusual accent. Once you meet her, you understand why no one turns her down: She’s relentlessly cheerful and cheerfully relentless.

3 The Lithuanians are coming! About 20 Lithuanians live in Roanoke, including Rita Maleiska, a longtime Local Colors supporter who invited a Lithuanian folk dance group named Ausrine to perform. Ausrine is based in Philadelphia, which is good because a flight from Roanoke to Vilnius, the lovely capital city of Lithuania, would’ve set the festival back $1,694.40.

Lithuanians are known for their love of basketball, and Roanoke Catholic School sponsors one or two Lithuanian exchange students to attend school and play for its team every year. “They tend to be tall, yes,” said Maleiska, who invites them to her house for dinner every Easter. “We had to make 20 pounds of potatoes this year.”

4 Six degrees of separation, or something like it: There are 55 Chinese restaurants in the Roanoke Valley, and China-born Fu is familiar with every one of them. Five hundred people are participating in Local Colors, including 100 volunteers — and Fu knows them all, too. She also knows many performers from the burgeoning Hispanic community. “I used to have to beg them to perform, but now there are so many that I had to turn some of them down.” (A separate Latino Festival, started with Fu’s help, is now held annually in October.)

Statistically speaking, you have a 37 percent chance of knowing Pearl Fu, a 72 percent chance of knowing someone who knows Pearl Fu, and a 98 percent chance of knowing someone who knows someone who knows Pearl Fu. (OK, we made that up. But we’ll bet that 98 percent is accurate.)

5 It bums Fu out when people don’t respect one another’s differences. Once, on Pearl Harbor Day, a man spat on her, mistakenly thinking she was Japanese. Another time, a white supremacist threatened her life for bringing all the nonwhites downtown and allegedly scaring white children. So Fu wants you to smarten up and hear this, unless of course you’re American Indian: “We all came from somewhere else!”

If you’re like most of us, traveling along in your safe little bubble of friends, co-workers and neighbors, you have a hard time imagining a Roanoke that’s as diverse as the Roanoke Pearl Fu knows like the back of her friendly, waving hand. Saturday’s your chance to see it through her eyes.

Local Colors

When: Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.: Parade of Nations, authentic food, arts and crafts exhibits, live entertainment, children’s games

Where: Elmwood Park, downtown Roanoke

How much: Free until 5 p.m.- 10 p.m., when admission will be $7 for performances by the Sauerkraut Band (German oompah), Shayar and Krooshal Foirce (reggae), Manisha (Indian/jazz) and Los Gatos (Latin/salsa). Also international foods, beer and wine.

More info: 904-2234

5 bonus Fu facts

• Pearl Fu’s real Chinese name is Long Jru, which means “Dragon Pearl.”
• Her Parkinson’s disease is slowly progressing, but she still managed to walk seven miles the day of Gov. Tim Kaine’s inauguration.
• She can no longer drive, though, and takes the bus — and she’s usually talking so much that the bus driver has to remind her to get off at the right stop.
• She considers herself a reporter of sorts and once was able to fulfill a “Nightline” producer’s request to “find multicultural lesbians in Roanoke” to interview.
• She came with her husband to Roanoke 20 years ago. “He’s my opposite, an introvert. Have you ever seen him? See, nobody has!”