By Daniel Wirtheim, Features Editor

Published in print Oct.1, 2014

The Asian Autumn festival was held in the EUC on September 27, showcasing arts, music, food and martial arts from across Eastern and Southeastern Asia.

There was the obvious. Taking photos in a kimono, or getting a personalized Chinese calligraphy sample, were seemingly popular, but the festival also featured a more extended look into the complexity of Asian culture.

There were niche audiences of Anime enthusiasts, or the students who spent a year abroad in Tokyo, that seemed to have a special insight into Asian culture. There was also the overwhelming majority who look at Asian culture through what Anthropologists would call “ethnocentric” values.

In Hollywood, Asian culture is closely associated with martial arts, punchy string instruments and triangular straw hats, all presented as a collage of mystifying and ancient traditions.

With more international students from abroad then ever before, a different side of Asian culture is being popularized.

“The correct way to drink Chinese tea is to sip it slowly, letting in air so you can get the aroma,” said Sophie Lane, who exhibited a wide array of Chinese teas for sampling as well as little anecdotes on how each tea was traditionally brewed. “In cultures that regard tea or wine as a delicacy, learning how it’s made is just as important as drinking it.”

In the United States, a country where Chinese products are usually associated with cheap plastics and sweat shop labor, it may be unexpected to see such a refined delicacy promoted as being a product of China. The tea was made with tasteful sensibilities, as were the traditional dresses used for a photo booth at an adjacent table.

The students running these booths were excited to display whatever piece of Asian culture they could.

Inside the EUC auditorium, young boys and girls practiced their orchestrated martial arts while loud, obnoxious music filled the open space.  A Japanese styled drum team beat large drums in unison, the primitive sounds cascading into something between mayhem and bliss.

It all seemed to contradict a more poignant reason for enlightening the community with Asian culture.

A slow trickle of refugees and immigrants coming mostly from South Asian to the Carolinas.

“Forsyth County is one of 17 pinpoint areas for Asian refugees, mostly from Southeastern Asia,” said Dr. Roberto Campo, Director of International & Global studies who’s organized the festival since 2008. “Most of them come to bigger cities in North Carolina … Here at UNCG, the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC) is trying to better integrate them into the community.”

Since 2001, CNNC has provided research and outreach programs for refugees and immigrants in North Carolina. CNNC provides comprehensive, but limiting ethnographies on each cultural group with information like their generally preferred religious practice or culinary dishes.

A recent segment aired on NPR news explored origin of the ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ melody, the one that plays in so many Hollywood films and cartoons when action takes place in an “oriental” scene.  It’s the same nine notes that the Vapors’ used in “Turning Japanese,” and melody that the Siamese cat in The Aristocats plays on a piano, with chopsticks.

When NPR asked citizens of Beijing to listen to a recording of the nine-note tune, they almost unanimously agreed that the tune was not familiar, or Chinese for that matter.

The article could be pointing to an underlining flaw, and possibly racist undertone, that an overwhelming majority of Americans are subject to when examining Asian culture.

“It’s important to integrate these cultures into our own fabric,” said Dr. Campo. “We’ve had six festivals in eight years … It’s been successful.”