Amerasia week celebrates culture

By NYRIE KARKAZIAN

Different Asian communities had a chance to spread cultural diversity throughout Fresno State last week with their annual Amerasia week.

The Amerasia group, which presented the six-day festival, celebrated its 35th year with showcases each night put on by different Asian cultures.

The events ran from Feb. 28 through Saturday in the Satellite Student Union.

The week started off with a comedy night on Feb. 28 featuring guest stand-up comic Eliot Chang and ended with a festival Saturday night.

The rest of the week included Cambodian culture night, open mic night, Southeast Asian Night, Japanese Night and Hmong culture night.

“Asian culture is more than martial arts and Chinese food,” said Chong Her, president of the Amerasia club. “The cultural makeup in Asia is varied and diverse, just like the Asian community here in Fresno.”

All the nights were filled with singing, dancing and cultural performances from many different groups.

Thursday night for example was Southeast Asian and Japanese culture night. The night began with an introduction into Japanese sports for the first hour.

Both sumo wrestling and kendo fighting were demonstrated. The sumo wrestling was illustrated by two men who came out on stage wearing inflated sumo outfits.

Kelly Moody, a senior majoring in liberal studies, said the wrestling was hilarious.

The wrestlers kept falling over as they engaged each other because their costume was large.

A group of about 10 people had to come on-stage and pick them up everytime they fell.

Moody said they demonstrated different fighting skills, such as slapping each other all over the body and pushing their opponent over from behind.

“I think it was really interesting,” Moody said. “It’s something I’ve never seen, something you don’t see every day.”

The rest of the hour consisted of a fighting technique called kendo, the sports version of samurai fighting. The performance featured two men dressed from head to toe in black robes demonstrating fighting skills with hardwood swords. During every move and with each thrust the fighters would shout.

The noises were later described as the fighting spirit, and the words are shouted out because each person must call out their strike before attacking.

“This is all that is left of samurai fighting,” said Harim Martinez, the webmaster and graphic designer for Amerasia.

Martinez said kendo classes were available on campus.

He also said the outfits worn in these fights and competitions are very intricate and heavy and expensive. One outfit alone can start at $1,000, and the helmet itself weighs about 30 pounds.

Martinez has been a part of Amerasia for three years and said that last year the festivities averaged about 350 people per weeknight.

The event attracted people from all parts of California; -- from San Francisco all the way to San Diego.

“So far we have actually had better attendance than last year,” Martinez said on Thursday night.

Martinez said the week starts out with a younger crowd but becomes more diverse toward the end. The biggest night of the week is Saturday night, which is festival night.

“It’s really loud and festive; it’s a fun atmosphere,” Martinez said. “The music, drums and everything goes by so fast, it doesn’t feel like two hours has gone by.”

He said the festival had so much responses this year, they had to turn away many performance group.

They also turned away three bands and four performers on open mic night alone.

Kia Lee, Amerasia week co-chair, said they try to allow each of the organizations on campus a chance to participate. Some of the groups on campus are the Japanese Students Association, Southeast Asian Teachers Association, Hmong Student Association and the FSU Lion Dance group.

Lee said the week is to show culture and diversity among the Asian community and all others who are interested in the beautiful and fascinating culture.

“There are a lot of skits and interesting dances; it’s fun,” Lee said.