Last Friday, Dec. 2 the Asian Pacific Student Alliance held their third annual night market at the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., with various campus organizations participating by selling different Asian cuisine.
Students gathered at the student union not only to try the various food and drinks being sold, but to learn about Asian culture.
“The goal of the event is to promote and spread awareness for the different Asian cultures and very active Asian organizations on campus,” APSA’s culture coordinator Gary Baldevarona said.
The event was hosted by APSA, but other participating organizations included the Pacific Asian Society of Engineers, Alpha Psi Ro fraternity, the Association of Indian Students, the Pacific Islander Student Association, the Vietnamese Student Association, the Japanese Student Association and Andres Bonifacio Samahan.
“We’ve been involved since the first annual,”said Monica Salazar, a member of the Pacific Islander Student Association. “It’s nice to be all together and to showcase each other’s foods.”
Each organization had a booth selling various food and drink representing their culture. Students could purchase items such as milk tea with jellies, Pandan waffles, curry fries, spam musubi and empanadas.
“The cultures don’t need to be generalized,” Salazar said. “There are different aspects to each culture.”
Brandon Fong, APSA’s assistant culture coordinator said that the idea for the night market originated three years ago with their former culture coordinator, Nicole Shimotake.
Fong said that he wants people to walk away from the event seeing different sides of the various Asian cultures.
“Our community can thrive in culinary and do more than just be doctors,” he said. We have a lot of really good food that’s part of our cultures’ histories to offer as well.”
When organizing the event, Baldevarona said that he wanted to keep things relatively the same as in years past and to keep it simple. He said he wanted to keep tradition with how the event has been run in the past.
Baldevarona is already thinking about the future of the night market and said that in the future APSA would like to have it be a bigger event with more booths and possibly even reach out to external vendors.
