NYU’s Taiwanese American Student Society (TASS) hosted their largest event of the year on April 11, 2013. The Night Market event started at 7 pm in NYU’s E&L Auditorium in Kimmel Center, but the preparation for the event was about a year in advance and the day of event set-up started at 10 am! The Night Market E-board recruited volunteers and got sponsorships from various of organizations such as: Chipotle, Frava, Kipin Hall, Microsoft, Monster Energy, NYU Bookstore, Sony, and Yooglers.
By Gai DaGai
Credit: LucasHuangPhotography.com
The co-presidents of TASS are Anne Lee and Nathan Wong, both of whom are juniors at NYU and have been in the organization for about three years. During the night market event, Anne Lee was in charge of handling the floor work and essential communications between performers, the MC, and volunteers. Nathan Wong was the DJ for the night and played music throughout the event. The MC of the night was Calvin Lin, a junior at NYU and an aspiring actor.
MC Calvin Lin. Credit: LucasHuangPhotography.com
As I made my way into the open space auditorium, I automatically felt a “warm night in Taiwan” presence with dimmed lights, lanterns and string lights above our heads. The room was filled with chatter and laughter from all the students, volunteers and guests.
Throughout the evening, students and guests entertained themselves with nine different game stations in which participants received blue tickets. With those blue tickets, participants were able to trade them in for a small prize or trade in five blue tickets for a red ticket. Red tickets enabled participants to be entered for a raffle of Big Prize such as a Sony Headphone or Ipod Shuffle. The more red tickets you had, the greater the chance you had of winning a big prize.
Credit: LucasHuangPhotography.com
The first station I went to was Fishing Bottle and Erica Hsia, an active freshman at NYU, was the moderator at this station. At this station, the participant has to lift one of the four bottles laying on the floor into an upward vertical position with a ring that is attached to a string. As easy as it may seem, it was harder than expected. Next, I walked to a station called Ninja, which was moderated by Evelyn Cheng, who is not only a volunteer and a junior at NYU, but also the editorial for GenerAsian. At this station the contestants have to throw paper ninja stars into a bucket located a several feet away. After that, I came across Three in a Row, which was moderated by Inati and Xinyang Chen, who are both volunteers from NYU. At this station, the player is suppose to throw three ping pong balls into any three of the cups in the box of nine that were about several feet away and also the three ping pong had to land in a line combination. The last station I went to was Psychic Mahjong, it was attended by Evan, a junior at NYU. At this station, the participant has to guess what mahjong tile is just by touch. Other game stations included: Feed Me, Knock Down, Pass the Lifesaver, Bubble Pong, face painting and a tattoo station.
Credit: Christina Rin
The food station in the center of the room had about 15-18 volunteers serving food to everyone. The food was delicious and filling. There were so many choices to choose from, they had fried pork chop, fried noodles, fried squid ball, fried tempura, fried buns, pork buns, marinated tofu, roasted braised egg, pancake with egg, pan fried egg with radish, scallion pancake, oysters pancake, chicken leg rice, steamed sweet rice, cucumbers, seaweed, sausage, chicken roll, dumplings, and egg tarts. For drinks they served various sodas and BUBBLE TEA! Anne Lee told me that free bubble tea is served in every event that TASS hosts.
And if the games and food weren’t enough, there were many amazing performances that went on stage! There were performances by NYU Students and a special guest performance by IAMMEDIC.
AsianInNY A-Team with IAMMEDIC. Credit: Christina Rin
IFA pumped up the stage with a dance performance. Milton and Co played the guitar and sang with two other people. Milton’s performed at all the TASS Night Markets since my freshmen year. Jessica Choi went up on stage and dazzled the crowded with a singing/acoustic performance. Jimmy Nieh performed an amazing acoustic performance. While WW/JC, Elaine Kuo, and Gordon Fan, all did astounding singing performances. And lastly IAMMEDIC ended the night of performances with a bang.
Credit: Christina Rin
IAMMEDIC is an electro pop band lead by Enik Lin formerly of Burning Tree Project, Burning Tree Project co-member Andre Harris, and his dear friend Danny Park and DJ Yup. The band came together in 2010 and there following has grown ever since. The band has about 1,800 followers on Twitter, 1,777 subscribers on YouTube, and over 14,600 likes on their Facebook page.
This was IAMMEDIC’s 4th performance in NYC. The band have been on two US National Tours and one International Tour. IAMMEDIC gave us a sneak-peak into their soon to be release album (Expected Release May 2013). They performed “Not Afraid” and “Red Ballon,” which were two songs in their next album. IAMMEDIC got the crowd to come closer to the stage and got nearly everyone to “put your hands up.” After their performance, I was lucky enough to interview IAMMEDIC (Thank you Anne Lee), and one question I asked was “How were you able to have all that energy on stage for every song you performed?” They replied, “The crowd is our inspiration” and the fuel of energy. “If the crowd is energetic, we will be energetic.”
This has been an astounding night filled with games, performances, food, and prizes! What a successful night, I am definitely looking forward to the next TASS night market event.
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Credit: LucasHuangPhotography.com
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