SASA GAME NIGHT
South Asian Student Association

The small SAC room that was the location for SASA’s Game Night was packed to say the least with members ready to start the spring semester with a bang.  The president of the club made an effort to go around and introduce himself to any new faces amongst the crowd.  The games that club members were seated around to play consisted of Operation, Cranium, Connect Four, Scrabble, and many more.  Refreshments were passed around and offered amongst friendly competitors.   Nothing like a friendly competition of Taboo to kick start hopefully another successful semester of SASA.

by Miranda Lim

JCA'S MOVIE NIGHT
Japanese Cultural Association

JCA’s screening of “Totoro” for Asian Awareness Week turned out to be a success. While some were lured to this event for the free food others were more interested in the adorable hamster/rabbit/mouse on the big screen. What exactly is “Totoro”? The Hayao Miyazaki fictional character is a spirit that befriends two sisters when they move into their new home while waiting for their mother’s recovery. This is a movie that like most Miyazaki films, is about the importance of never letting go of one’s imagination and the belief that nothing is impossible.

by Miranda Lim

ASA's SUDOKU
Asian Student Alliance

Along with pizza and drinks, students were getting to know each other while completing Sudoku puzzles of varying difficulties from easy, medium, to hard. This famous puzzle is the culmination of having numbers from one to nine in each horizontal and vertical columns as well as having numbers from one to nine in each of the nine three by three box without repeating and number in a each row.

by Jon Hu

MARTIAL ARTS INTRODUCTION CLASS
 MMA1 & SBU Sparring Club

Taekwondo is the official martial art of Korea. The modern teaching of this sport is as deadly as it has ever been. The instructor is Joseph Kholodenko, who has been practicing for the United States National Taekwondo Team. He is currently teaching students in the sparring form of Taekwondo. If you would like to learn more, please Facebook him. His assistant Jason Chung, also a student at Stony Brook University, demonstrated the correct forms of traditional Taekwondo. It was a fantastic night of lots of “kiop”-ing, front kicking, and lots of fun cardiovascular work.

by Jon Hu

VSA MOVIE NIGHT
Vietnamese Student Association

As a part of Asian and Asian American awareness week the Vietnamese Student Association held a movie showing of the film, “Journey from the Fall.” “Journey from the Fall” is a grim and sad movie depicting the struggle of the South Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. All movies depicting the Vietnam War so far have never shown the struggles of the Vietnamese boat people or reeducation camp victims. Many people don’t even know that there was a Vietnamese “holocaust.” Director and writer Ham Tran interviewed many boat people and reeducation survivors to make his depiction of the fall of Saigon as accurate as possible.

The movie focuses on one family’s experiences. The movie flashes back and forth between Long and his family. Long, the main character, played by Long Nguyen, is sent to a reeducation camp. These camps are similar to the Jewish Holocaust camps. Victims were forced to do labor with little food and they lived in poor conditions. In the camp Long is forced to do arduous and potentially deadly labor such as planting wheat, logging and clearing land mines. In a logging accident Long’s leg is broken but he is punished for it because the camp guards claim he was trying to escape. His punishment is to lead a group into the fields and clear land mines. Unfortunately, one of Long’s friends is killed by a land mine. The movie shows a very graphic and disturbing image of Long’s friend with his leg blown off. Long made a valiant attempt to escape the camp when he got the chance but was eventually caught and killed.

Meanwhile Long’s family is escaping Vietnam by boat .When his wife Mai visited him at the camp he begged her to escape Vietnam when she got the chance along with his mother, Ba Noi, and  their son Lai. Their journey was to the “new economic zone,” America, but other Vietnamese escapees also went to China, the Philippines and other countries. Their journey was not without its own struggles though. Mai, Ba Noi and Lai are crammed into the space normally where fish are held in a fishing boat and the children vomit because the boat exhaust fumes filled the boat. At one point their boat is attacked by pirates who kill most of the boat crew and kidnap and rape the women and young girls. Mai escapes capture because Ba Noi poured boiling rice porridge over her and her captors. When the family finally reaches America their struggles are not over. The family faced many problems. Mai was always busy working long days in a sewing factory and neglected her son. Ba Noi spent her time taking care of Lai and digging through trash for cans. In school Lai gets into many fights with Hispanics who bully him because he is Asian. The movie ends with Mai, Ba Noi, Lai and Nam, the captain of the escape boat attaching wishes to a kite.

I feel my synopsis does not fully depict all the hardships that occurred in the movie or convey the same feeling of suffering and pain these characters and many South Vietnamese went through. If you have the chance I encourage you to see this movie. If you are Asian American perhaps this movie will help you appreciate the struggles of your parents or grandparents when they came to America. Luckily my parents’ journey to America from Vietnam was not as dangerous or painful but my dad always reminds me that when he came to America all he had was the clothes on his back. CJ, the vice president of PUSO said that he enjoys movies like this one because they always remind him of how spoiled he is compared to those in living in Asia or those who struggled to come to America.

For more information about the movie you can visit:
http://www.journeyfromthefall.com

To find out about upcoming VSA meetings and events check out the AA E-Zine events calendar: http://www.aasquared.org/calendar/calendar.pl

by Ngoc Vu

CASB MAH JONG TOURNAMENT
Chinese Association at Stony Brook

A fun night where Asians and non-Asians came to play in SAC Ballroom B and enjoy a fun game of mahjong which requires skill and a lot of luck to get the right tiles you need to win. Everyone played according to skill level from beginner to advanced - each competing for his or her own mahjong set. Besides that, everyone talked and had fun while drinking their Vita drinks and eating candy provided by CASB staff. In addition, the lion dance team performed to show off their dragon dancing moves. People also won stuff from the raffle such as cash prizes like $1 or $5, t-shirts, DVDs, and other stuff. Overall, it was a great night to have fun, play an exciting game of mahjong, and relieve some of that stress from studying.

by Herman Lau