Through the difficult wait for Covid-19, Asian Culture Club (ACC) started in a brand new school year. The President of the ACC, Gordon Zeng, expressed that they prepared this past year to reconvene the club as there was one ACC before, but all those members graduated, so he brought the Asian Culture Club back to the Malden High School community.
“We [have such a large] Asian population in the school. I kinda just want to bring everyone together” to promote Asian culture, “celebrate” and have a “social club,” Zeng said.
The Asian Culture Club held a "Fire Noodle Challenge" at the beginning of the school year. Although it may have been conducted in the past by other clubs, Zeng thought it was still fun for the club.
People who took part in the challenge had to pay five dollars, and the winning condition was that they needed to completely eat the spicy noodles on time. For this, some challengers tried all the ideas they had. “One kid ate all his noodles with his fingers, trying to shove it down his throat, but he almost threw up," said Jeslyn San, the secretary of the ACC.
San said the significance of the event was that “For the Asian community, we thought that this fire noodle challenge would bring us all together and just in general” and that they tried “to get everyone in the club together and socialize with each other.”
Zeng had thought that people would not be interested in the Fire Noodle Challenge until he saw the amount of involvement, which surprised him. Zeng said, “I think overall, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I think it's just a [good social gathering].”
The Asian Culture Club planned to have one meeting at the end of each month to describe recent and upcoming events, feedback, and, most importantly, recap everything that they did each month. In the meeting, they also go over some cultural holidays, “maybe everyone can learn some new values,” said Zeng.
Elina Yang, one of the ACC members, expressed, “I liked how everyone in the club was determined to express our cultures, not just specific cultures, like Korean [and] Chinese” Yang thought it made more diversity and inclusiveness to every Asian identity. And that is the reason why she joined the club.
Yang also learned from the club, “I felt like I was able to express myself more, especially with new volunteering experiences... So it was like something that we could share with everyone that was interested in our culture.”
“I feel it's important for us to know what's going on in our school, and how we can help to make everyone feel more included, especially here.”
Elina yang
San recommends, “If you're interested in learning the Asian culture, [you] should definitely join the club, to just contribute more into [the] modern Asian community.”
Zeng wishes that the Asian Culture Club will be something that is well known, "to be something people can feel an environment feel, can feel comfortable, not just Asian culture, but it's in general, like a [society]."
This is the beginning of the year for the Asian Culture Club when members learn and convey their learning. They encourage people to become more diverse, no matter if it is in the city of Malden, or any environment. The club hopes it could be a good place to socialize because that is why the ACC exists.
