APASA Night Market 2016

Hi fellow Trojans! My name is Stefanie Kuizon and I’m serving as this year’s APASA Communications Director. Quite a step up from interning last year.

Hopefully, assuming you weren’t off to Dance Off retreat, you were here on campus this past Friday night celebrating with APASA at our annual Night Market held at McCarthy Quad. For the fall semester, this is one of our biggest if not the biggest event. We welcome all students to come join us as we have a taste of some Asian delicacies, enjoy amazing student performances, and play traditional, cultural games.

Modeled after the infamous night markets that exist throughout Asia, our night market aims to bring a similar experience of strolling down the streets to USC students. Of course, the major difference we have is currency – using tickets instead of money because let’s face it, college students are more or less short on cash these days.

An even greater incentive to participate in the festivities was our amazingly cute and practical prizes. It was simple. You sign in to the event, you get a ticket. You play games, you get tickets. Now you walk over to the prize booth and trade them in for your choice of prize. As usual we had a lovely collection of Tsum Tsums along with mugs, chicken cups, pens, notebooks, fans, and cup of noodles. There was even APASA gear such as tote bags, stress balls, and water bottles so you (our fellow APASA fans) could rep us. From what I heard one person actually exchanged 20 tickets for 20 stress balls to throw at his roommate.

Personally though, my favorite part about night market isn’t the food, deserts (but damn that shaved ice was good!), games, or prizes. It’s the performances. We got to experience first hand the movements of Hawaii Club, TCD, and Bhangra and hear the melodies of Haneulsori, Leo Xia, Doji, and Maxwell + Andrew. The energy was truly there that night as we came together as a Trojan family to enjoy the night. I hope you all had an amazing time at this year’s night market and I can’t wait to see you at our next big APASA event.