Between China Night, Japan Night and the Hawai’i Club’s annual Luau, University student organizations put on several cultural events every term. If you haven’t had a chance to go to any of them, you can sample all of them this week.

“If you’ve been to any cultural night, you can basically take snippets of all those,” said University junior Bryan Saxton, International Student Association spokesman. “You can expect to see that at International Night, and more.”
Saturday is the ISA’s 44th annual International Night with a theme of “Palette: Six billion brush strokes, one portrait.” The event will feature performances and food to celebrate the cultural diversity of the University.
Leading up to International Night is International Week. All week in the EMU Amphitheater, University students can learn languages such as Turkish and German, as well as Chinese calligraphy; watch martial arts demonstrations; sample African food; and listen to the Eugene Russian Choir.
Other performances will include the Native American Student Union’s potato dance, Korean DJ Kyunhong Min, Irish music by Eliot Grasso and the Arab Student Union’s belly dancing, among others.
“It’s a good way to promote a lot of different cultures all week,” said University student Jake Chang Monday afternoon, who stood under a tent in the Amphitheater listening to live Hawaiian music by Some Guys.
The University’s international students come from more than 80 countries.
“I think people still see diversity, but (International Week) definitely helps promote a stronger sense of it,” added Chang, who is co-director of the Hawai’i Club.
At night, the ISA will screen movies – “Tsotsi” from South Africa, “The Official Story” from Argentina, “Good Bye Lenin!” from Germany and “Whale Rider” from New Zealand – in the Mills International Center, located on the EMU’s mezzanine level, directly above the post office.
“We feel that there’s kind of an inherent division between the international students and the rest of the students … International students tend to group together and feel separate from the University community,” Saxton said. “(ISA) puts on a lot of events to try and bridge that gap.”

Gigi Chung, a University junior from Hong Kong and head of the International Week Committee, said that by bridging that gap, events like International Week can help international students become more comfortable communicating in English.
“ISA helps people from different countries come together,” she said. “It’s really good because it’s free, free food and performances. People can pass by and watch all week.”
For more information, log onto the International Student Association’s blog at http://uoisa.wordpress.com. A detailed schedule of International Week events is available in PDF form at http://uoisa.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/i-week-schedule.pdf.
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