Chinese Lantern Festival

It's been really great to spend time with all of my friends and family while I've been back in America. I've had lots of great conversations, good food, and just time to hang out and not do much of anything. I've also experienced some culture shock being back in the US, but that is a subject for another time. All of this stuff has been wonderful, but it isn't very blog-worthy... So there hasn't been much posting. However, on Thursday and Friday, I got to participate in the Chinese Lantern Festival that my church does for the international  student community at Purdue. 

On Thursday, a group of us took over the church gym and set up tables and chairs, and as many decorations as we could find in Indiana. 

There was a stage and a white board for the games and entertainment that would occur throughout the evening. 

Chopsticks play a very vital role in our celebration. Not only are they used to eat all of the food, there is a chopsticks contest. It involves picking up dried beans and dropping them into a cup. This is timed, and the fastest person is usually quite fast. I think it was something like 30 dried beans in about 16 seconds? It's crazy. 

There were so many people there. We set up chairs for over 150 people, and there were barely any empty seats to be had. It was pretty cool!

One of my primary duties on the night of the actual Lantern Festival was to serve food for a few tables. There were the very interesting appetizer combinations of potato chips and kimchi on the tables when the guests sat down. We also served bows of rice, thin noodles with pork and cabbage, beef and broccoli, a spicy tofu dish, General Tso's Chicken, and homemade pork dumplings. At the end of the meal, we also served traditional Chinese sweet dumplings. It was delicious food, and there were good friends to share it with. I assure you, they are good friends, despite the face that John is making in this picture. 

Most of the students were Chinese, but there were people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds there as well. We played games based on American idioms for the students to earn points for their table. Each table also had a lucky red envelope with $5 taped to the bottom of one chair. 

I know how much I love being able to celebrate Western holidays with Western traditions while I'm in Korea, so it was really wonderful to be able to help provide a small taste of home to a lot of Chinese students who are studying in America.