Temple University hosted its first Asian American Night Market last Saturday.
Spearheaded by the Vietnamese Student Association, the event featured performances, pay-as-you-go food vendors, crafts, baked goods, and a feeling of community.
Amy Vo, the president of the VSA, thinks “it’s important to have an event like this just to show what we can do as students. Also, as a community, I think the whole point of this event is to show what kind of community we can build just by supporting each other.”
Elyse Gallagher, a senior at Temple, credits the out-doors nature of the event for the high turnout, saying “I do think because it’s outside, it’s a Saturday night that other students are interested. Like, “Oh, there’s a big event going on. What’s going on?” So I definitely think a lot of word of mouth kind of helped spread when the event was taking place.”
Putting it all together wasn’t easy. Temple’s Asian American Student organizations collaborated all summer to assemble what you see before you. However, it was well worth it.
While it might be Temple’s first time, according to junior student Kirsten Viray, it’s not the first of its kind in the city. She says “this is actually the first time that they’re putting out a night market. A lot of the surrounding schools do a night market like this and this is the first one that Temple has put out.”
Attendees spoke about the importance of a pan-asian event such as this. Peter Vu, the president of Ascend’s Temple chapter, says “the legacy of an event like this is to promote the Pan-Asian community within Temple. As we are a minority group, obviously, we just like to show we have a big community here and a big impact on Temple’s campus and within the Pan-Asian community.”
Word on the street is that this will be an annual occurrence, but no one could officially comment.
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