Golden Triangle residents can take a trip around the world this weekend without ever leaving the area during the Mississippi School for Mathematics’ International Culture Festival, to be held on the Mississippi University for Women campus.
The event, hosted by the MSMS Asian Student Association, will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Catherine Bryan Gazebo and will feature international food, activities and performances by MSMS students.
ASA President Raymond Yang, an MSMS senior from Tupelo, said the event will offer Columbus residents a chance to experience a global atmosphere without leaving home.
“It’s a blend of global cultures that creates an immersive international experience right here in Columbus, Mississippi, which I think is really amazing considering it’s a small, rural town,” Yang said.
From traditional Indian henna tattoos and German mask-making to steaming plates of Chinese dumplings, cultural staples across nine countries will be represented by student booths at the festival.
Musical performances and dances by the Indian Cultural Association, the Black Student Alliance, the MSMS Strings Club and MSMS student Colin Chung will also be interspersed throughout the morning, beginning at about 11:10 a.m.
“The purpose of this festival was really to unite the MSMS community, which is already really diverse,” Yang said. “I just wanted them to showcase their individuality and the things that make them unique, whereas in their previous schools, before they came to MSMS, they might have been kind of the odd one out.”
Attendees can purchase tickets at a rate of $5 per 10 tickets on site to exchange for food and activities at each booth. MSMS students and faculty will be offered a limited amount of tickets free-of-charge.
ASA Faculty Sponsor Lori LeVar Pierce said the festival was once an annual fixture for MSMS, though it hasn’t returned since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“Things at MSMS, so much of it is student driven, so it really depends on which group of students we get and how interested they are in doing all of this work,” Pierce said. “… We have a really, really good group of students who have been planning this since August.
“… It’s a way to share culture,” she added. “That’s what the Asian Student Association is, it’s a way for those students to share their cultures … with the broader community. We’ve done this before where it was just MSMS students, and we’ve done it where the broader community in Columbus has been invited. It’s just a way for (students) to let other people know what life has been like for them in other countries or in their families of origin, or in the languages that they’re studying … at MSMS.”
Yang said he hopes to see between 50 and 100 people in attendance at the festival, though any number of attendees would be “amazing to see.”
“This is a culmination of multiple months of hard work into a single, three-hour event,” Yang said. “… My hope for the future is for the International Culture Festival to become a fundamental part of the MSMS experience just like say, a school dance, and I want MSMS to not only be known for its academic rigor, I also want it to be known as a school where community and diversity is fostered and celebrated.”
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