Wearing traditional clothes and Halloween costumes, 90 participants gathered and played interactive games and ate Asian foods for the World Languages Week event at the Multicultural Center on Oct. 31.
World Languages Week is an annual event meant to introduce world languages to De Anza College students.
Young Sook Kim, a Korean instructor and World Languages Coordinator, said the reason she organized the event is to let students and world language faculty members get to know each other and explore different languages and cultures.
“The last one was held in May, but we hurried to have the event,” Kim said. “Because (by holding it) in the beginning of the school year, we thought there were more students interested in (attending).”
Kim said the event date that she and other World Languages faculty members decided on coincided with Halloween, so they highly encouraged students to wear either Halloween costumes or traditional clothing in the event brochure.
Peyton Warner, 26, a biology major, wore Korean traditional clothing called hanbok, and said she borrowed them from her Korean class teacher.
“I started listening to K-pop when I was in high school 10 years ago. I really enjoyed the way that Korean, the language, was spoken,” Warner said. “I ultimately decided to start trying to learn it because I wanted to be able to listen and understand without having to Google it; I just wanted to know what was being said and what the actual context was, not just the literal translation.”
Warner said she enjoyed the event — especially the games about world languages, where she won a prize for the multi-language quiz.
Kim said the World Languages Club members created the quizzes which related to world languages. Kim also acknowledged Alona Agmon, 18, an economics major, the president of the club, Juwairia Quraisi, 18, an accounting major, the vice president of the club and Elizabeth Tsai, 18, a computer engineering major, former president of the club for their help in planning this event.
Tsai said the WLC team prepared games relating to language, culture and places that many people may not know. They also prepared the prizes, such as gift cards, to get the participants more engaged.
“We didn’t want to direct our games to just be playing,” Tsai said. “We tried to connect a lot of different people as everyone’s from a different background.”
Some participants are seeking to study abroad in the future. The Korean Education Center in San Francisco had a booth to inform students about studying in South Korea.
Owen Javier, 22, a business administration major, said he joined the event because he heard about the event from his Korean teacher. Javier said he enjoyed learning about studying and schooling opportunities in South Korea.
“Since I was adopted, my mom, my birth mother, who I’ve never met, she’s Korean,” Javier said. “I hope to one day meet her and be able to speak in Korean to her without a translator.”
Kelly Hyung, 21, a psychology major who is taking a Korean class, said information about the study abroad programs in Korea was helpful because she is considering studying in South Korea after graduating from a four-year university.
“I’m glad that there was the actual information,” Hyung said. “There’s a little bit of an increase in my passion in wanting to study Korean.”
Hye Jung Heo, the director of the Korean education center in San Francisco, said over 30 students visited the booth and talked with her. Heo said over 33,000 students from other countries, including more than 3,000 American students, come to study in South Korea every year.
“A lot of Americans wanted to study in Korea because of the high quality of education and affordable price in Korea,” Heo said. “They really want to study Korean language and history.”
This year, the event only had one study abroad booth, but Kim said she plans to bring in more from other countries and introduce De Anza students to the study abroad programs.
Kim said, “Even though we speak different languages, we can have the same feeling (and) we want to feel the environment and atmosphere together.”
