The Taiwanese American Student Coalition held its annual Night Market on Sunday in the Mandela Room.
Taiwanese night markets are street fairs found across parts of Taiwan typically open in the evening and featuring traditional Taiwanese street food, games and shopping vendors. TASC’s Night Market appreciated and displayed traditional Taiwanese culture with a unique take on the market.
At the door, attendees received a box for food, a written menu and a point-tracker sheet called “poke for points.” The sheet recorded points so participants could earn tickets for prizes.
TASC partnered with Sodexo to cater the event. The menu featured items served at traditional Taiwanese night markets, including scallion pancakes, braised pork over rice, bok choy, tea eggs, fish ball skewers, popcorn chicken, milk mochi, cucumber salad and bubble tea. The night began with a walk around the street food vendors as dinner boxes were assembled.
Bella Wai, a co-event coordinator of TASC and a sophomore majoring in accounting, described the extensiveness of the cooking process. She said she set aside hours to help prepare, create and cook the menu alongside her fellow E-Board members.
Attendees moved on to play games after they assembled their box of food. The games represented traditional games that one would find in a Taiwanese night market. TASC made replicas of them, including balloon popping, ring toss and marble chopsticks, a game where a participant tries to move marbles into two different bowls, holding them on chopsticks and trying not to drop them.
After winning a game, attendees received points on their point-tracker sheet. They gave away free points, as everyone had the opportunity to reach into a box with numbered pieces of paper corresponding to the amount of tickets received. At the end of the night, points were tallied, and attendees won different prizes based on the amount of points they accumulated.
On top of each game station were artistic banners, which explained each game and included drawings of them. There was also a handmade art installation backdrop of a traditional Taiwanese market draped in the Mandela Room, made by TASC.
“The TASC Night Market is special to me not only because I contributed to the planning of the event,” Isabelle Tai, a co-event coordinator of TASC and a sophomore majoring in neuroscience, wrote in an email. “But also because, as a Taiwanese person myself, I want to spread my culture and experiences to other students and inspire them to travel to Taiwan one day.”