September 27, 2011

By Robin Youngyi Park

The university celebrated its fourth International Day on Tuesday morning. Every year, MU declares the last Tuesday of September as MU International Day and promotes cultural and racial diversity on campus.

The event began with a grand flag ceremony in front of the Columns, featuring a record-breaking number of flags.

“We have around 70 flags presented this year with 60 student volunteers carrying their own national flags, compared to 40 volunteers last year,” Missouri International Student Council President Giang Nguyen said.

Wearing Saudi Arabian traditional clothing, senior Tariq Al-Yami has attended the event every year since MU launched its first International Day in 2008.

“The flag ceremony directly shows that MU embraces and promotes diversity,” he said. “I have attended the International Day for four years already, and every year I am amazed at the number of international students involved and the amount of efforts they put together to make this event successful.”

Since 2008, the number of flags presented in the International Day every year has been continuously increasing. MU has also witnessed a rise in the number of international students coming either for a degree or exchange program, according to the International Center.

“We have more than 120 countries with a few thousands of international students contributing to the international community here at MU,” Nguyen said.

After the flag ceremony, the 35th International Bazaar was featured on Lowry Mall, where each country set up its own booth and introduced its unique traditions and cultures through artifacts and cuisine.

Freshman Hosang Lee was at the Korean booth, distributing Korean food and explaining various Korean traditional artifacts to students.

“Each and everyone who is really tied to his own culture contributes to this event together” he said. “Yet, I feel that it could have been better for the Korean booth if we could feature a more variety of things such as Korean traditional clothing (Hanbok), music and food like Kimchi.”

Al-Yami said he has consistently been making individual efforts to promote his own culture of Saudi Arabia.

“Since I am a senior, I have many American friends and I always tell them about my culture, invite them to my house and let them try authentic Saudi Arabian cuisine,” he said. “I even introduced Ramadan to my friends, and we celebrated it together in August.”

Nguyen said the Missouri International Student Council annually plans and carries out various different events to promote diversity and bridge the gap between local and international students at MU.

“I do hope that we have more student volunteers from various different countries as well as higher budget next year, so that we can fully represent each and every single nationality at MU,” he said.

Al-Yami said he hopes this tradition will continue forever.

“They are great opportunities for international students to feel a stronger sense of belonging to the university and for local students to learn about various different cultures they were never aware of,” Al-Yami said.