Nothing could stop the enthusiasm of the annual International Cultural Festival (ICF), not even the new round of haze in Beijing. Despite the less-than-favorable weather, ICF 2014 was once again a great success. Students and volunteers from more than 58 countries and regions gathered before the KhooTeckPuat Gymnasiumin Peking University (PKU) to celebrate the ICF, one of the most anticipated events in PKU.
With the aim of creating a global village in PKU, ICF is proud to have reached its 11th year. The theme for this year’s festival is “Novel, Enthusiastic, and Wide”, the initials of which spelled out “NEW”, conveying its aim to create a more diverse environment and fresh perspective for all. The annual mega-event consists of a cultural fair, onstage performances by foreign students studying at PKU, and a gourmet center for everyone to get a bite of cuisines from all around the world after they visited the nicely set up booths.
Booths are lined in a serpentine manner, so that as visitors walk along the booths, they would be led into a whole new world of exoticness. Starting from the west side of KhooTectPuat, each visitor is given a passbook. At every station they visit, they can answer a quiz or complete a game that is related to the country of the booth they are visiting. Upon completing the tasks, they will be awarded with a stamp. After they have finished the whole route, ending near the northeast gate of PKU, they can exchange for a souvenir if they have collected all the stamps. After which, they can proceed to the food center to reward themselves with a refreshing snack.
At the booths, some students dressed up in their ethnic costumes, while some also donned mascot costumes. They provided detailed introduction to people who stopped by. Clearly, the students have put in a lot of efforts, setting up big posters and banners, miniatures of the countries' landmarks, and preparing free giveaways. The crowd size started to swell sharply at 9am, and reached its peak in the afternoon. Everyone enjoyed the fair and the response was positive. It seems that all the hard effort had paid off.
When interviewed, a Mongolian student from YuanPei College shared her thoughts on this year’s ICF. "I think that Peking University’s ICF is a great opportunity for students’ mutual understanding of each other's culture. Also, this year's ICF is very well organized and bursting with lot of fun stuff. With regards to the preparation, we started to prepare almost every night beginning from two week before ICF. Even though it took so much time, but at least we had fun and did well on the ICF. That feels so great. ICF is a great opportunity to communicate with people from other countries, as well as tightening bonds among us Mongolian students too."
Written by: Sheryl Zheng
Edited by: Heng Kang Wei
