Cultural Night in Superior, Wisconsin

I HAD always thought of Superior, Wisconsin as a drab, boring and dying town. Its main street is a row of bars and convenience stores that look like they don't get a lot of customer traffic. There does not seem much to do around town. Duluth has the DECC, the aquarium and the Canal Park. But Superior isn't at all Superior. It is more sad than superior.

Which is why I was surprised that there were so many international students at the University of Wisconsin-Superior Cultural Night. True, there were no Filipinos (that says something right there because Filipinos are just everywhere).

But the dinner and cultural show organized by the UWS international club was quite impressive. Around 200-300 people showed up at the dinner (only $8 with admission to the show). It was also obvious that a lot of work was put into the cultural show.

Many foreign students wore their national costumes, participated in the parade of national flags, performed song numbers, skits and dance numbers. I especially liked the Japanese mini-play about the Mysterious Rice Ball and the Singing Mice (I still can't seem to get the mice's song out of my head!). And I was very impressed with the First Nations Dance of the Fancy Shawl. I kept wondering, what do all these foreign students do for fun in such a boring town...Maybe they rehearse all year long for the cultural show!



I was with several other students from the UMD International Club. The UMD International Student Adviser, Karin Robbins, was there that evening too. She was wearing an Indian inspired dress. All evening I regretted not bringing a baro't saya to Duluth. Sayang talaga. Cecilia from Indonesia was there too. I met Christiana from Ghana. Nishit from Tanzania, Nitya from India, two guys and a girl from Nepal (their names escape me now), Taryn Karin's assistant, Chad an American and someone else who was originally from Sudan but had gotten his US citizenship a few days ago. One of the Nepalese guys chatted with me after dinner and told me he did his undergrad in Baguio City from 1998 to 2002. Imagine that! What a small world indeed. He even knew my home town and had played the casino there. The weird thing is, somewhere in the back of my brain, I may remember seeing his face on Session Road. And that may have been my last trip to Baguio, for a Firefly Brigade planning session.

I like events like this where one can meet people from parts of the world I have not been to and may never visit. It's probably the next best thing to actually being there. One also gets an excuse to present one's story and one's world just by smiling, saying hello and being. Sometimes, one's stories are familiar, sometimes they are new. And sometimes they are just stories one never dreamed of having, but have been there all along. On the tip of one's rice ball.