Asia Cultural Festival

         It was different from the World Cultural Festival, an event which was held by overseas students. We, the Chinese students of GDUFS shall host the festival. Some complained it’s somewhat ridiculous since we are freshers, we are Chinese and we knew little about the country we were going to present.

        But as the day drew near, we had to prepare. We went to our Indian teacher, Sharma Ji’s faculty residence building to learn something about Indian cooking. We were amused when he emphatically listed every statistic like “2kg potatoes, 1kg wheat flavor, 1/2 liter oil” to make Samosa. However, under his influence and guidance, we began to take it seriously and were determined to make a great success.

Making food and having fun

        The more visits we paid, the more we learned: sometimes some fragments of Hindi words, sometimes Indian wisdom but more than this, Sharma Ji’s warm and genuine welcome created an atmosphere of home so that we no longer felt lonely living our first year so far away from home.

       On the afternoon of April 23^rd we could smell the excitement in the air, the excitement of the whole campus. With a sense of eagerness and tension, I ran to our camp. After many tries, I was able to apply Mehndi (a kind of short-lived tattoo) smoothly on people’s skin. Therefore, as I sat down beside our first customer, I showed her a big smile. At that moment it occurred to me many times Sharma Ji’s instruction “Quality matters more than Profit”, and I started to work.

My classmates performing Indian dances

       I spent the whole afternoon with great peace, with my companions crying out to sell our Indian tea, Samosa and curried rice, all the while with ladies in red dancing in front of us. As for myself, I just stuck to my job drawing tattoos as I had a long queue. I did not lose patience, neither did I regret missing every detail from other stalls because I did not miss them. When I was applying Mehndi on a young girl’s hand, she described to me the exquisite jewelry at Indonesian stall, the talented guitar performance at the Burmese stall and the wonderful costume show of different Asian countries including those from Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam etc. Without walking around, I could imagine a corridor of tasty foods, colorful clothes and splendid cultural exhibits. It’s just such an afternoon that connected us all together. If only it could last longer.

Students wearing various costumes

        Surprisingly, we find ourselves mastering different skills afterwards. Some can cook, and others can dance. Most importantly, we get to know better the exotic culture so that it brings to our understandings that the festival itself is not only a carnival, but also a secret full of art to be discovered.

         For me, the secret is, though it seems like a cliche, that we should never be anxious about the unknown because all we can do is to travel light along the unclear path of life.