East West festival- When cultures meet

I realized I have not been updating in awhile....I have been watching alot of K-Drama during my free time....sooooo addicted!!!! kekeke....Anyways, last weekend, for the first time since I have been in the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I attended the east west festival which is held once a year at my University. As all of you know, Hawaii is a place where everyone from around the world meets. There is not only a good mix of Asian and Western food, but the people here are that way too, hence the reason there are many mixed children here(called hapa haole in Hawaiian) 

As I am reading up about the East West center, which was established 50 years ago, it is a center to exhange resources and information of common concerns among the United States, Asia and the Pacific region. This center not only brings people together to exchange views but also builds expertise, and develop policy options. Impressive huh????

It's like a ray of light dawn on me that the famous East West center is here on my own campus and I don't experience and participate in their events....So, I decided to check out their festival this year.....and....I definitely wasn't dissapointed! :)

Everyone was out and about on a beautiful sunny day to support friends from their own and other's culture:)

UH of Manoa's own Japanese garden!

The stage and the emcee, my friend Erenst

Timur Leste performance

Portugese performance

Can you believe it? They had dances and performances from all the different cultures from 1-6pm? And, that my friends, is called "dedication"! Dedication to bring cultures together, to gather families, friends from many different parts of the world, to understand and share what is a part of them(e.g., music, dances, language,etc.). The past two years since starting graduate school has enlightened me in many aspects and one area of that is I have come to appreciate my "roots" alot more. When they say that humans are never satisfied and we always think that the "grass is greener on the other side", I have to agree. Before I came to the USA, I thought the world of it because of the media and the hype I guess, but boy was I wrong!!!!I then realized that I wanted to share who I was with my friends from the USA or other countries such as Japan or Korea, and who I was actually represents how and where I was brought up.........Now, I appreciate my culture so much more because I have come to see how much my culture can offer to others.....:)

Beautiful costumes, from China and our neighbour Thailand

Erenst in his formal Indonesian outfit

You can tell they went all out! You go guys!

With Mei Li, so cantik!!! Make Malaysia proud!!!!

And of course, this cute lil boy in his Vietnamese outfit! I just had to get a picture...he is trying to act like a "gangsta"!

Can you believe that the students of the East West center even made the effort to put up little booths to represent their own cultures!!! I was sooooo impressed...my mouth dropped open when I saw it...kekek...Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a lil but take a look at these pretty booths yourself...my three favourites!

Indonesia

Philippines..i loved that little house!

Taiwan

Finale, catwalk of all fashions from different cultures

Multiculturalism, that is the key word nowadays. Racism, discrimination, prejudice shouldn't exist amongst all humans because all of us share the same DNA!!!!! Accepting diversity or more like promoting it should be the way to go, not picking on people because of their skin color or where they are from. I believe that all cultures have something to learn from one another and that we should all cooperate with each other because we live under the same umbrella which is called the "WORLD".......Thank you East West center and the many many students who made this event happen!

Hope all of you around the world are sharing cultures with one another:)

xoxo

Meiz