The Hong Kong Student Association hosted a small taste of the Hong Kong nightlife in the first annual Hong Kong Culture Night at Portland State on the evening of May 1. The night entertained the audience with delicious Chinese food as well as talented performers, a photo booth and a raffle.
“We want to emulate the nightlife, so we have some activities that people can go to, some performances that we have found to be popular in Hong Kong,” said Tammy Louie, the secretary of the Hong Kong Student Association. “We want to get as many people to come and experience this, who want to learn more about Hong Kong. Anybody is welcome.”
The night featured several diverse performances beginning with a traditional lion dance, meant to bring good luck, performed by the Portland Lee’s Association. Following the lion dance, multiple song and dance performances occurred including a hip-hop number performed by Franklin High School Performing Arts.
The performances were by far the favorite part of the night for Alex Harper, a business major and active member in many of the Asiatic clubs at PSU. Harper will soon be traveling to Hong Kong to be an art dealer.
“I’m looking forward to the experience of the everyday life of Hong Kong,” Louie said. “Hong Kong culture is one that has a lot of influence from both Eastern and Western culture.”
“It’s like a melting pot or a mix between different influences, so we just want to emulate how Hong Kong seems to be where East meets West,” she said. “So there are some businesses that are Westernized already, but there are still some traditional influences or norms that are still taking place, so we just want to show how the balance between those two are in Hong Kong right now.”
However, Edward Tam, a student at PSU who is majoring in mechanical engineering and is a native of Hong Kong, found the night to be slightly off target.
“Other than the lion dance, it’s not really Hong Kong culture. They have their own style of popular music,” he said. “In fact, Hong Kong productions are on the top charts.”
The main focus of the night was to act as a learning experience about Hong Kong and how it functions as a global community.
“We just want to show a different side of Hong Kong to the people in the community,” said Louie. “[The audience] can experience what it’s like to be over there, what it’s like on an everyday basis. So we’re just trying to let PSU students and the PSU community know more about the Hong Kong night life.”
“I think because it’s our first culture night, our first big event, we just want people to see how different our group is. We want some kind of change for people to experience, so we want to do nightlife. Something that is different from the things we have seen so far, but we want to show how it can be similar to the life here.”
