Tomorrow at 7 p.m., Portland State’s Taiwanese Student Association is throwing a celebration at the downtown Hilton Hotel to ring in the Year of the Dragon. The Chinese New Year is considered by many to be the apex of traditional Chinese holiday festivals, both in matters of importance and excitement. This student-led event will try to live up to that reputation.
Hosted at Alexander’s Restaurant on the 23rd floor of the Hilton on Southwest sixth Avenue and Taylor Street, the celebration will have a casino-night theme, and formal wear will be mandatory. The TSA worked with the Student Activities and Leadership Program and the Hilton staff to find an affordable, off-campus location for their celebration.
“For most PSU students, when we have a big event it’s held in the SMSU ballroom,” said Ian Wu, a business graduate student at Portland State and the president of the TSA. “However, this time we decided to talk to SALP and the staff at the Hilton, and they were willing to provide cheaper rent on the place and the food.”
The TSA has been planning this event since last summer and has dedicated a major amount of their funding toward its success.
“The students came up with the idea early on,” said Rachel Samuelson, the SALP student organization advisor for the international, spiritual and language student groups. “I’ve been really impressed with their event planning and their ability to think long-term.”
Because the TSA is a second-tier student organization with the Organizational Budget Council, it has nearly $8,000 to spend on the night’s cultural elements and activities, as well as on downtown real estate and catering.
The TSA group dispersed all of its 300 invitations to the celebration within three days of their being available, and since each invitation admits two people, there could be up to 600 students and faculty present to take advantage of the free food, gambling and photo booths hired to immortalize the night.
Entertainment is not the only thing being offered on Friday night: cultural exchange is high on the minds of organizers and attendees alike. “We want to celebrate this kind of very traditional event,” said Wu. “It’s the best chance to exchange our culture with Americans and other international students.”
Echoing the sentiment is Jacob Voegele, a political science junior and PSU ambassador. “I’m really looking forward to finding out more about Chinese culture,” Voegele said. “I haven’t really had diverse experiences growing up…Any time I get the opportunity to go to an event like this, I’d like to be able to experience that.”
The event is free for attendees, so do not come expecting to win big on the cards. Instead, take this celebration as an opportunity to experience a facet of foreign culture that many of us in Portland have not been exposed to—and to look good while doing it.