By Cheong Chiew Yen

Photographed by Pritha Sukumaran

International Friendship Society organized the Cultural Night - We Are Together as the closing of the Cultural Fiesta 2013, which was held from the 2^nd of August until the 16th. The event was held in Heritage Hall on August 18^th at 8pm. The event serves as a platform to bring the international students together to learn about each other’s culture.

“The concept of We Are Together was born because we think that no matter what culture you are, we are all together,” said Deon, the Chairperson of Cultural Night. “After six months of grueling preparation, today is finally the day. All the committees are very excited and looking forward to it,” Deon added.

“The Cultural Fiesta was initiated by the idea of the Cultural Exhibition. In order to make the event more interesting, we came out with the idea of Cultural Fiesta, which branched out into music, game, food, clothes and dance,” said Rosemary Xavier, the Executive Director of the Cultural Fiesta.

After going through four events, she said that she was glad to see every event ending successfully and thanked the committee members and helpers in making those events a success although they faced hardships in monitoring the working progress of different events.

Mr. Khor Chien Yen, officer of DSA and Mr. Lam Yoong Chuen, officer of Department of International Student Affairs thanked the committee members in putting their efforts into the Cultural Fiesta event since 6 months ago in their speech. 

The performance of the night included Western, Chinese, Malay, Indian, Japanese, Korean and African culture. Dream Guardians, which consisted of UTAR Setapak campus students started the ball rolling by singing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift. A Hip-hop rap performance by African students followed by B-boy dance from UTAR Dance Club brought the first session of performance to a climax.

The second session of performances started with the Chinese Orchestra. The special program of this event was the Best Attire Competition. All the attendants who wore traditional costume or special attire that contained traditional elements were qualified to participate in the competition. One final winner will be chosen based on the roaring of the audience. In the end, Jilo who donned her African costume took the final win.

The event came to the end after the ending speech of Rosemary Xavier. Once again, she thanked the committees for their hard work and also thanked the helpers in making the event a success.