The following blog post is from current OSU student Stanley Yu. Excellent work, Stanley, and thanks for the report! — mko

Gung Hei Fat Choy everybody! My name is Stanley Yu and I am one of the student workers in the Office of Admissions at Oregon State University. Currently, I am a senior majoring in Pre-Pharmacy with a minor in Biology and Chemistry. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii and being raised in a Chinese family, I speak Cantonese very well and serve as the technical support for the newly formed Hong Kong Student Association here at OSU.

On January 28, 2009, we held our 1st Hong Kong Night here at OSU! With multiple booths, we were able to display a wide variety of culture in Hong Kong whether it being the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) game, fortune telling, red envelope art workshop (lantern making), Chinese gambling games, and more! Some of my favorite games held there was the gambling one called the fish, crab, and shrimp game where there are 6 squares showing a fish, shrimp, crab, coin, chicken, and calabash. With dices that represent those 6 figures, basically people just bet coins on one or more of the figures and if the dices (three dices are used) rolls and shows that figure, you win double the amount that you put in!

I was in charge of the fortune telling booth where we used old Buddhist doctrines to tell peoples’ fortunes by shaking a bundle of sticks with numbers on them, until one of the sticks fall out. With that number, I had to locate the number in the book and tell them their fortune. Being my first time telling peoples’ fortunes, it didn’t turn out all that bad since the fortunes given weren’t always good fortunes and was very realistic to their lives. A few people even told me that their fortune was very accurate! Hence, many positive feedbacks were given to the fortune telling booth. Thank you guys!

The event was planned about 3 months ago with officers holding weekly meetings. Even though we were rushing it the last second of the week it was being held, it managed to be very successful. Being the 1st annual Hong Kong Night, it was definitely mind-blowing to hear people give positive feedback about the event. Thus, we will try and make it even better and more organized next year.

If you haven’t gone to the Hong Kong Night this year, please come next year! If you are interested in finding out more about the club, events, or have any questions, please feel free to post a comment below or email me at yust@onid.orst.edu.

Being a new organization as of now, we are currently not funded so if you wish to donate, please email yust@onid.orst.edu.

Also, wait for mark :47 for the Office of Admissions Recruit Team student worker Stanley Yu telling fortunes! I’ll have Stanley write about his thoughts on the event and the new year and have it posted in the near future. Stay tuned.

The Chinese Association of OSU also held festivities earlier in the week for China Night 2009. See more about the events hosted by the Chinese Association of OSU by visiting here. (Any readers have any photos or videos from the event? Leave a comment with a link and I’ll post them here!)

–mko