iFest is iBest!: UNCG’s International Festival
By TIFFANY MERRITT
Raleigh NC has some very unpredictable weather, that’s why staff and students were worried about our annual Easter celebration that was planned for Saturday, March 31st. This event was planned as a way to bridge Chinese student’s love of BBQ meat with American’s celebration of easter traditions such as collecting hidden eggs, dyeing eggs beautiful colors, eating chocolate and delicious food, as well as competing for who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth and still say ‘Chubby Bunny.’ Ultimately, we wanted UPP students and staff to spend a day in the sunshine playing games, enjoying food and each other’s company, while also learning about the penultimate Spring holiday to welcome in the sunshine and flowers.
The UPP interns at UNCG helped students host a booth where they would teach participants about Chinese culture. This year, students helped people write Chinese poems or their names on scrolls in traditional Chinese characters. People had two choices of how they wanted to record the poems. The easier option was to write the poem on a piece of white paper, then attach rods to the ends of the paper in order to roll the poem up as a scroll. The harder option was to write the Chinese characters vertically on popsicle sticks, then bind the sticks together to resemble the record keeping style found in ancient China. People could choose poems with a variety of topics including love, friendship and family. An example was a poem written by the famous poet Li Bai. This friendship poem talks about a friend departing on a boat. As his boat reaches the deep water, he hears footsteps on the shore. The footsteps belong to his good friend, who has come to wish him farewell. At this moment, the man in the boat realizes that even though the water under his boat is very deep, the love his friend has for him is much deeper. Poems like this provide Americans with an appreciation of the beauty of Chinese characters as well as the cultural meaning behind Chinese literature.
UPP students volunteered in order to interact with new people and share their home culture. Later on, the interns reflected on why this opportunity is important for students. All the interns who worked at this event are Chinese students–and some of them former UPP students!–so they understand the struggles UPP students go through. Intern Huiguang “Kevin” Ke said it is important for students to participate in this kind of activity so they can teach others about their home culture. Yang “Melanie” Min (UPP October ‘14) thought festivals like this help with the cultural adaptation process and foster international friendships. Besides the value this type of festival adds to increasing intercultural competency, Yang “Tommy” Fan (UPP August ’12) added, “Volunteering is good for our students because it is a social responsibility.” The staff at UPP appreciates all the work UNCG puts into this yearly festival and we are grateful this opportunity is available for all students.
Event highlights include the hilarious match of Chubby Bunny, where students Tom and Zale won a lot of points for their team, the Blue team, for both getting 11 marshmallow’s in their mouth. Onlookers erupted into hysterics at the end when Zale could no longer hold all of the candy in his mouth and spit it out in the trash can.
The final competition, the frisbee match, gave individuals a chance to throw their frisbee far and accurately into the chosen zones awarding different points. Dylan Gao was the most skillful in his throw, he was the only one who was able to land his frisbee in the 3 point zone, with most students winning their team points with frisbees in the 1 point zone.
The blue team took home the prize at the end of the day, a free and fancy dinner to a local restaurant worth $200!! Here are the winning smiles of team mates who participated eagerly in all the activities and even took their loses with graces. Students enjoyed the event for the beautiful weather, home-cooked food that tasted of home, and enjoyed learning about some of Easter’s most fun traditions this time of year.
Good thing we did not postpone this event until the next weekend, where it was 45 degrees and rainy!! The Saturday was meant for us as students and staff usher in the end of the semester, ready for their exams and build excitement for entering NC State in the fall semester!
Thank you to everyone who attended and helped make this event one of the highlights of the year!