The Rose Parlor was filled with smells of delicious homemade food and then with the noise of lively conversation on Wednesday, February 12th, when OIS held the third event of the Around the World series, this time with a focus on Asia.

Almost a dozen students (including international students and students who had been abroad in the region) prepared wide array of delightful dishes from Aloo Paratha to Vietnamese spring rolls to Indian rice pudding and mango mochi.

In an effort to have students showcase their culture through avenues other than food, OIS has been looking to incorporate other elements, either song, dance or games, into the Around the World events. This time we were lucky to have a group of Korean students give the audience an demonstrations of traditional Korean drum music and talk about various types of traditional dress (accompanied by some extremely adorable models!)

As usual, we had a trivia portion first which lead into the main discussion on a variety on issues. Some of topics brought up were different perceptions of their countries students encountered upon arriving in the US and the many cultural differences experiences including customs and traditions around food and more surprisingly, the etiquette of giving thanks. A couple of students from India spoke of being surprised at how often people in the United States say ‘thank you” in regular conversations, whereas in their experiences, being grateful is and unstated, understood concept and the Hindi word for thank you isn’t used nearly as frequently. We also had students

Keep a look out for emails about our last Around the World event of the year, ATW Latin America and the Caribbean on April 16th!