Asian Students Association’s annual Asia Night celebrated Asian culture and heritage through music, dance performances, skits and impressive displays of Chinese yo-yo on Tuesday.
The night began with an energetic performance of “GRL GVNG” by KPACK, NC State’s K-pop dance crew, and was followed by NC State’s Diabolo team, which executed a visually stunning show of Chinese yo-yo that had the audience cheering and shouting words of encouragement throughout.
Christopher Kha, a second-year studying psychology and publicity chair for ASA, said Asia Night performers are picked locally and in a way that ensures diverse performances.
“The performers we try to choose are diverse Asian people,” Kha said. “It’s very diverse here and also at UNC-Chapel Hill, so basically, we just choose local performers that we know of.”
Other performances from NC State students and organizations included a set by musician CJ Gunjal, who performed a cover of the Hindi song “Kyon” and his original song “Catch Me” with only a mic and piano; a performance by Thandav, NC State’s premier Indian classical dance team; and a collaborative performance between Filipino American Student Association, Alpha Phi Gamma and Lambda Phi Epsilon that encapsulated the Philippine legend of Sarimanok.
Throughout the night, interspersed through different performances, members of ASA performed skits featuring folk stories from Japan, Vietnam and India. Among these stories were “Sơn Tinh – Thủy Tinh,” a Vietnamese myth explaining monsoon season and flooding in the country, and “Anarkali,” an Indian legend of love and power.
Kha said the goal of Asia Night was to bring people together through the celebration of Asian culture and welcome newcomers to NC State into a diverse community.
“The purpose of it is to bring people together through Asian cultures, … catering to freshmen, because it’s their first time here, and they should have fun in their freshman year here,” Kha said. “They should be exposed to all these cultures, and our purpose is to let them know that we are welcoming to anyone.”
Khang Pham, a first-year studying electrical engineering, said he decided to come to Asia Night because the event brought together many Asian organizations on campus.
“I think Asia Night cultivates a lot of Asian organizations,” Pham said. “I know a lot of friends in VSA, which I’m in, and we decided to get together and go to this to support the other Asian organizations and performances.”
Kha said though Asia Night was ASA’s biggest event, general body meetings bring people across the NC State community together.
“We often do general body meetings that could be like arts and crafts, movie nights, just anything,” Kha said. “We say our purpose is just to bring people together.”
Pham has attended events hosted by ASA before and will be attending more after Asia Night.
“It’s really good seeing the energy here,” Pham said. “You know, everybody from the crowd is really supportive and the performers are great, super talented. You don’t get opportunities like this often, so it’s super exciting. I’ll definitely go again.”
Kha said ASA helps bring awareness to Asian diversity and beauty and holds Asia Night to celebrate cultures from all over the continent.
“Asian culture is just beautiful, so diverse,” Kha said. “Look at our clothing. What else can we say? Like, we’re beautiful people. Asian people love the culture and we have it.”
