Chinese Dumpling Extravaganza: creating a home away from home

Photos by Annmarie Welser

Story by Sierra Morris

As people flowed in and out of room 204, the smell of fresh dumplings poured into the halls of Memorial Union South. The room was teeming with more than 50 students and professors, all gathered for the April 7 Multicultural Hour: Chinese Dumpling Extravaganza. The annual Chinese Qingming festival, celebrated in April, was the inspiration.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Asian Affairs Center hosts Multicultural Hour events every Thursday at 4 p.m. The events are free to the public, and the mission is “to improve understanding and promote better relationships among different cultures.”

MU international student Wenbin Guo is from China and is studying industrial engineering. Guo says he came to the event to meet new friends and to create a family away from home.

Tzuyang Chao, director of the MU Multicultural Hour events, says the Qingming festival is all about bringing people together.

“This festival is for family,” Chao says. “ In China’s culture, we focus more on family than in American culture. In China, we grow up with our parents. Here in America, you must become independent.”

Each dumpling was like no other, and molding the dough is an art form by itself. Traditionally, each shape is individually designed with a purpose: to feed the family and to connect at the dinner table.

“No matter what festival is going down, we always eat a dumpling together,” Chao says. “The dumpling is easy. It’s easy to cook, it’s easy to make, so that’s why we always make the dumpling.”

Although the festival focuses on families in a traditional sense, family can come in many different forms. Here at MU, friends gathered with helping hands and stories from memories of celebrating the festival at home.

Up next for the Multicultural Hour: bubble tea. Chao anticipates there will be more than 100 bubble teas prepared.

 

International students find a second home at MU

By Shy Hardiman

Five months ago, for the first time ever, Dheeraj Srivatsav left his home of Bangalore, India for the U.S.

“People are really nice here,” said Srivatsav. “You need to layer up yourself when you go out but that’s the only thing. It [studying in the U.S.] is a good experience.”

The minimum weather in Bangalore, located in the southern most part of India, is 50 degrees and is usually around 80 during warm days, according to Srivatsav.

He is one of the many students that attended the annual MU Multicultural Hour Welcome Party on Jan. 29. The graduate student, who came to MU to get his master’s degree in computer science, sat next to another student from Bangalore, Aditya Parashar.

“We were there,” said Parashar. “Apparently, we were neighbors but we didn’t know each other.”

Parashar also came to MU to get his master’s in computer science. The two ate pizza and drank soda while mingling with the other international students at the Welcome Party. While Srivatsav said that the weather is one of the biggest differences in between India and the U.S., Parashar said that it was the food – and traffic.

“I’m used to a place where it’s almost like war out there on the streets,” said Parashar. “You literally have to stop [cars] with your hands, so that [crossing the street at MU] has been really nice. I like being given preference when you are walking.”

In addition to both being from Bangalore, studying for their masters in computer science, and being vegetarians they are also both multilingual.

“I speak four [languages] – Hindi, English, Kannada, and Marathi,” said Parashar.

Srivatsav speaks Hindi, English, Kannada, and Tamil.

Although they both speak multiple languages, they came to the Welcome Party to meet people that they have commonalities with and differences. Parties like the Multicultural Hour have been one of the main ways that Srivatsav and Parashar have made friends at MU.

“These things are really good,” said Srivatsav. “You get to meet so many different people – so many different cultures.”

And even though they are thousands of miles away from home, they don’t feel like they’ve landed in a foreign land at all.

“People, invariably, you dig a little deeper and they are all the same,” said Parashar.