APASA Night Market 2022 🍙🎤

APASA’s annual Night Market, as told from the perspective of Emma Hsu, our Programming Director, and Katie Osako, one of our APASA interns.

Night Market finally made a comeback in Spring 2022 🎉 WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO! The last time APASA had a Night Market was in the Fall of 2019 and only a handful of people who were in APASA back then were still around for this semester’s Night Market.

As APASA’s Programming Director this year, I [Emma] have never experienced the breadth and energy of the past APASA’s Night Market, so along with the Assistant Director, Josh, we reimagined the entire event. At the onset of the planning process, the event was intimidating to plan. There were so many aspects of Night Market to take into account—coordinating with member organizations for booths, finding performers for our lineup, reaching out to a wide variety of APIDA food vendors, designing how we wanted McCarthy Quad to look….the list felt endless! However, once we got the ball rolling, everything fell together naturally. We hope that the event was as enjoyable to y’all as it was for us to plan!

In case you missed Night Market (or if you just want to relive it 😂), let us take you through the event!

There’s a buzzing noise of people mingling in line, the aroma of sweet donuts and chicken marsala wafts through the quad, and there’s an aura of excitement in the air. You make your way through the quad and see a line of people wrapped around the corners. “What is this for?” you think to yourself. Then, you remember… Why of course! It’s APASA’s Night Market.

You spot your friends in line and wait to reach the check-in booth where you receive a beautifully designed graphic pamphlet with a map and guide for the event. Oh, and most importantly, the pamphlet also contains food tickets! 🎟 Once you’re in, you quickly rush to the food booths to get a glimpse of the array of free food to choose from. There’s chicken tikka and chana masala, spam musubis, and onigiris 🍙 for the entrees. The dessert choices are even more enticing, as there’s boba 🧋 and grass jelly from MeetFresh and perfectly decorated animal donuts from Fantastic Donuts. You and your friends strategically divide up your tickets to get one of everything and share all of it amongst each other.

After eating, you walk around the quad looking at all the member orgs and their booths. You are determined to collect tickets to win some prizes. From playing with Kendamas at Nikkei’s booth to participating in Dragon Boat’s rowing challenge 🚣‍♀️ to playing trivia with APCA, you enjoy your time interacting with org members and learning how you can get involved.

Then out of the corner of your eye, you spot a puppy! 🐶 You walk over to investigate and come across the Be the Match booth. They are swabbing for cheek cell collection to add to the national bone marrow donor registry. At Be the Match, you learn that diversifying the registry gives more people who need bone marrow transplants a better chance of finding a life-saving donor. You also head over to the South Asian Network community booth after hearing about their Sanrio character prizes. As you complete your trip around the quad, you can’t help but smile from all the fun you’ve had and the amazing organizations you’ve met.

Now that you’ve collected tickets from playing games at member org and community org booths, you are faced with the dilemma of whether or not you want to cat or tiger plushie. Settling that tough decision that you had to make with a coin flip, you take your tiger plushie 🐯 and settle down in front of the stage, criss-cross-applesauce style. As the SpadeA boys enthrall you with their Rollin’ dance 🕺, you clench your plushie with excitement as you scream at the top of your lungs. As the sky got darker, the bistro lights became more vibrant and more people started to gather around the stage. The final performance by the Chaotic3 dance group required all the grass space in front of the stage, as their 40-person ensemble performance required ample space for their energetic and emotional performance.

The 2022 APASA Night Market was a testament to the vibrancy of the APIDA communities at USC and how one night can bring us all together 🤩. We hope the night was filled with laughter and impeccable vibes! We would like to acknowledge and thank APASA’s directors, Josh, Jennifer, and Leon, for being very supportive throughout the planning process—this event could not have been possible without yalls support ❤️

Night Market will be returning very soon ;) See y’all then!