APASA’s Return to Home Base, as told from the perspectives of APASA interns Sarah Liang and Amy La.

Three space crews from separate planets land on an unpopulated planet only to find that an alien species of mimics dwell on this planet and are rapidly sabotaging their efforts to return home. Each space crew must quickly gather the resources to refuel their escape pods, all the while keeping the imposter mimics off their crews, so that they may safely “return to home base.”

Friend or foe? Crewmate or imposter?

Such was the greatest enigma of the night at our novel, Among Us-inspired game, featuring the most skilled of participants in the art of deception.

From left to right: Edward Leung, Sheldon Ho, Mike Wu

Return to Home Base!

This year, APASA’s yearly Night Market was replaced with a no less exciting competition between three teams of pre-selected participants, parading false loyalties while sabotaging enemy teams in various activities throughout the night.

Each team was headed by one of the three personalities of the eccentric and loveable Chinese-centric, comedy channel, CantoMando, including Sheldon Ho, Mike Wu, and Edward Leung.

Our executive board MC’s, Colleen Feng and Cody Mizuguchi, did a seamless job directing and advising both the participants and CantoMando team captains in each tactical activity.

CantoMando’s sporadic, up-beat, and competitive relationship, only enhanced the suspensefulness of the event as they competed to find the imposters among their hand-selected teams.

Audience Perspective

Amy’s Perspective:

Working behind the scenes, I was able to watch the games come to life. The games took many trial test runs in order to gauge participants’ understanding of the rules, and many adjustments were made so that the players could understand the rules of the game clearly enough to play. From the perspective of an audience member, the event progressed incredibly smoothly, and everyone looked like they were having a good time! Both Cantomando and selected participants were so humorous with their remarks and comments; the energy and vibe of the entire event was so upbeat, engaging, and manic in the best way possible. A big shoutout to our amazing MCs Colleen Feng and Cody Mizuguchi, who played an integral role in maintaining the high spirits of this event with their constant smiles and bubbly personalities! It genuinely made me laugh out loud to watch Cantomando try to figure out who was actually part of their team. As someone who helped with preparing the trivia questions, it was interesting to watch the participants go back and forth with choosing their answers 一some of the questions were more difficult than others. Meanwhile, Cantomando had to figure out whether participants genuinely didn’t know the questions or if they were just sabotaging.

Sarah’s Perspective:

From a basically-totally clueless audience member’s perspective, I became increasingly enthralled with each proceeding activity, holding on to every ounce of suspense created by the competitive atmosphere. Every carefully plotted sabotage and perfectly executed test of loyalty, as well as occasional slip-ups from imposters, made me eager to take my guess at who the imposters could be and which team was more likely to come out on top. While CantoMando groaned in frustration and participants visibly shook their heads in utter confusion at totally wrong answers, I felt myself *screaming* — in the chat of course— when I realized that participants had sabotaged their respective teams. Everyone seemed incredibly engaged by the passionate banter between participants and the compelling, over-the-top personalities of the CantoMando guys! To top it off, both the raffle prizes for audience members and participant prizes were so trendy and interesting (I found myself wondering what my chances would have been as an audience member if not for having been an APASA member… (-; ).

Participant Perspective

Vivian’s Perspective:

“I enjoyed how all participants were encouraged to interact with Cantomando, and no one seemed left out. I got more competitive as the games went on, and I think this similar energy was reflected by the guests as Mike recalled jumping out of his seat, Sheldon taking notes, and Edward giving certain facial expressions… Revealing the points after each round was memorable for me since everyone was anticipating and anxious to see.”

Angela’s Perspective:

“Cantomando’s energetic and humorous dynamic added a lot to the experience. They had very spontaneous and natural banter that made the game seem like it had much higher stakes and created many laugh out loud moments. They also just seemed like genuinely sweet and wonderful people so it was hard not to root for all of them to win regardless of which team you were on. I wasn’t sure how competitive they’d get at first but then they all pulled out their phones to start keeping track of all teammates from the very first round –– it was like an “ok, so I guess this is serious now” moment for them. I wonder what their strategies were...My strategy was definitely to just lay low at first. I was part of Edward’s team so, when Mike chose me for the first round of Minority Rule, I think I was a bit panicked and decided then and there to pretend to be part of his team. Of course that wasn’t so easy when he chose me again for the intel gathering part of the event; I tried to repeat his real teammates’ answers but they definitely caught me haha. I got so close to infiltrating his group too! There was a moment of hope when he put me in his chosen team for the final part of the event but of course his teammates remembered to kick the imposter out…ahh they were too smart for me. It definitely made things extra fun to have the option of trying to infiltrate or staying noticeably loyal from the start though! And I think all the players and team captains did an amazing job!”

Highlights

Here are some recounts of the most memorable moments of the event:

During the question that asked who were the 3 Cantomando members, Cathy completed an ultimately, hilarious sabotage when she purposely chose Bart Kwan, David So, and Gina Darling
When Carolyn Folt was selected as the answer to USC’s mascot, there was a mumble between the Cantomando members where one inquires, “Wait… don’t you all go to USC,” before another nudges him for a “bruh” moment 一 someone had just sabotaged by purposely getting the question wrong!
Occasionally, there were subtle, humorous inside jokes about CantoMando members, specifically calling out Edward’s hair and just how many quarantine dates Sheldon’s been on!
Throughout the event, there was the pure chaos when participants rushed to think of an answer and hectically came to one (and became super frustrated when it was the *wrong answer ;-) ).
One questionnaire asked what was Cantomando’s most-viewed YouTube video, leading to a showdown between the views that KPOP versus Uncle Roger drive. One participant passionately expressed, “But Uncle Roger attracts tons of traffic,” while the other refutes, “But Kris Wu!”

Concluding Remarks

From translating Chinese song titles to energetically throwing up our hands in frustration (or stepping aside to scream in Sheldon’s case) to cheering on our favorite teams, Return to Home Base successfully captured CantoMando and the hosts, participants, and audience members in a night of competitive fun.

Congratulations to the winners and a warm thank you to all participants for the entertaining, *heated* (not really) debate.

APASA’s Return to Home Base event was truly such a unique, flushed-out, and well-executed event. Big shoutouts to our very own Programming Chair Josh Lu, our co-Executive Director Patrick Fang, and all the other APASA members that contributed to the overall success of such a comprehensive event. Thank you so much for making it to this event and witnessing some insanely convincing impostors! See you soon :-).

Return to Home Base 🚀 Night Market 2021