Asian collaboration event

asian collabThe Asian Pacific Islander Student Association, Korean Student Union, Indonesian Fellowship Club and South Asian Student Association joined together to create an intriguing and welcoming event.
“The idea is that we (APISA), as a program, want to bring all the clubs together,” said Roni Limardi, a member of APISA, “especially for this API month during May.”
Billy Agung Tjahjady, a member of the Indonesian Fellowship Club (IFC), described his membership to the club as “natural.” He continued, “I’m Indonesian and [when] I came here to BC, I found out there was a club just for that country, and that’s my country.” He said he appreciates the collaborative event, which offers clubs representing various ethnic groups a chance to “be in one place together. It’s really nice to see that.”
Vice President of IFC Clive Ibrahim said, “We want to represent that the club is here. We’re Indonesians, and we also invite people from other groups or other nations to join this club.”
The IFC focuses on “gathering Indonesian students [to create an atmosphere in which they can] be more comfortable and feel less distant from home.”
Crystal Woo, event attendee, described the event as an opportunity for various Asian ethnic groups  to “introduce [their culture’s] traditional game [s] and traditional food.”
“We share the culture [with each other],” said Korean Student Union member Jay.
Indonesian Fellowship Club officer Feny said that the purpose of the event was to “build community” among members of various groups. A representative member of one of the groups said, “we’re representing South Asia, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan [and] Burna.” Shawn Jafri, who was representing the South Asian Student Association, said: “I think this is an amazing event. I’m glad that this happened, and I think it should happen every year. A lot of the times when the discussion [of] Asian Pacific Islander students comes up, […] people think about east Asia. They always think about China, Japan, Korea, but they forget that India is part of Asia too, [as well as] the Middle East [and] Arab countries.”
He continued, “I’m just really glad that this could happen and that I could get to know more people from the APISA community and they could get to know us. It’s just representing our heritages and collaborating. It’s a collaboration event.”
“Hopefully next year we can be super active and super out there,” perhaps by having an event in the courtyard or cafeteria rather than tucked away into room C120.
The event invited “anybody interested in the culture, anybody who wants to learn about it,” Jafri said.