TASA holds festival to celebrate Taiwanese culture

The Tour of Taiwan festival, hosted by the Taiwanese American Students Association (TASA), took place in the Glass Pavillion on Saturday night.

“Our goal here was to spread knowledge of Taiwanese culture,” Lisa Ni, co-president of TASA said. “I’d say that would constitute success.”

The festival ran from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. and featured four different stations, each demonstrating an element of Taiwanese culture. Each of the four stations also represented a prominent city in Taiwan — Hualien, Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung.

“We wanted to highlight these four cities,” Eric Ong, co-president of TASA said. “At two of the stations we have traditional food, and at the other two, we have traditional Taiwanese crafts.”

At the Taipei booth, group members served braised pork rice and scallion pancakes, two popular Taiwanese dishes.

“The food was great,” freshman Eric Tsai said.

“I really liked the pork with soy sauce,” freshman Tolani Ayeni added.

According to Ni, TASA cooked these foods the night before the event and the morning of the event.

The Taichung station featured the popular Taiwanese drink bubble tea, which is a mixture of tea, fruit and tapioca balls.

“We had three hundred cups for bubble tea at the beginning,” Ni said at around 9:40 p.m. “Now we’re almost out. It’s a great problem to have.”

One of TASA’s primary concerns was that the event would simply be viewed as a free food giveaway.

“We have this reputation as a group that just serves food, and we wanted to branch out from that,” Ni said.

To showcase Taiwanese culture beyond food, the festival included two stations in which students could make their own native Taiwanese crafts.

At the Hualien station, which was named after the city with the largest aboriginal population in Taiwan, students could construct crafts including necklaces, bracelets and hair pins from a variety of strings and beads in the style of the Paiwan tribe of Taiwan. According to the CIA World Factbook, two percent of Taiwan’s population is descended from the original Austronesian inhabitants of the island, and the Paiwan is one of 13 indigenous tribes currently living on the island.

“I loved the knots that some people made,” freshman Will Scerbo said. “I saw one guy make an eight-petal flower.”

Ayeni also enjoyed the cultural addition that TASA made to its event.

“The arts and crafts booths were really cool and interesting,” Ayeni said.

At the Kaohsiung booth, group members directed students in making shuttlecocks, which are used in Taiwan in a manner similar to hacky sacks. Users played a game in which stood in a circle and kicked the shuttlecock to one another.

“The people at the shuttlecock booth were incredibly nice,” freshman Brian McConnell said. “They helped us out.”

The festival also had a photo booth, where students could put on props and have their photos taken in front of some pictures of Taiwan. TASA uploaded 127 photos from the booth to its Facebook page on Monday evening.

If students received cards from all four stations, they were eligible to enter a raffle. The grand prize winner of the raffle took home an “Awkward Turtle” plush doll, and two runner-ups won Chipotle gift cards. Students could also win an Inter-Asian Council T-shirt.

“I really want that turtle. I hope it’s that size,” he said, looking at a massive projection of the turtle on a wall.

Students were satisfied with the festival.

“It was a great cultural experience,” Tsai said. “I would definitely recommend this to my friends.”