By: Lydia Schouten
Back in September, the Chinese club held its annual Mid-Autumn Festival, and despite their experience putting on events, this one almost didn’t happen.
“Because there’s so few of us and because the event is so soon in fall semester, we were not going to do a Mid-Autumn Festival, which we normally do every single year” says Social Media Officer Katrina Ustanko.
The club is suffering from a lack of students in leadership positions and after the current ones graduate, there may be none left.
Club President Jozie Shepard says, “It was just me, and I can’t do it by myself.” However, their new faculty advisor this year, Chinese professor Paul Faust, stepped in and helped make the event happen.
Ustanko says “we told him we were worried we wouldn’t be able to do it and Paul said ‘what are you talking about? We have to do the Mid-Autumn Festival!”
The leadership/officers told Faust that they would agree to host the festival again if he could take the reins on planning. While Chinese club leadership has dwindled, the Chinese 111 class is bigger than it has been for a while, so Faust used that interest to campaign for volunteers to help with setting up and taking down the festival.
Faust told the students that they will earn extra credit points on a class project if they volunteered to help which seemed to significantly motivate students.
The renewed interest provided the Chinese Club leaders a chance to rope in some potential new members, as Shepard says, “they are first on our poaching list.”
Chinese club is a bit different from the other language clubs because it is entirely student led, with the exception of their faculty advisor, Paul Faust, who is a new formal addition this year.
“Chinese Club follows a different philosophy than other language clubs, rather than being an extension of the classroom, we strive to share culture” Ustanko says. No Chinese language or culture skills are needed to join.
Chinese Club has the goal of culture exposure rather than just practicing the grammar of the language. One of the reasons why this is the goal of the students leading the club is, “many are intimidated by the Chinese language and this way we can demystify that and allow people to still access Chinese Culture without being scared of the cultural or language barrier” Ustanko says.
Shepard adds, “our main goal is educating people on different holidays and culture and things they might not be aware of, rather than a language study club.”
Chinese Club has both weekly meetings called “tea time” as well as bigger events throughout the year. The Mid-Autumn festival is one that they have been doing annually for a while, and it is based off a mid-autumn celebration in Chinese culture that is centered around “Chinese folklore about the moon and the moon goddess Chang’e” Ustanko says.
The Mid-Autumn festival is all about gathering with family, eating food, celebrating, and in many cases looking at the moon and lighting sparklers. The festival is also always held on the full moon that, according to the Chinese lunar calendar, has the illusion of being closer to Earth.
Chinese club is still worried about their future since all of the current officers are fourth years and there has been a recent lack of interest and new members. Shepard says, “we are working on trying to recruit new people, but you can only really do that if people are willing.”
They are worried enough about it that in the event that the club doesn’t continue next year, Shepard shares that they have been putting together guides on how to run the club, so that if somewhere down the line, wherever someone wants to look back into Chinese Club, they have all the resources and avenues available to them.
The fact that Faust was able to bring in the amount of new volunteers for the Mid-Autumn festival from his 111 class was a huge ray of light for the club leaders.
Shepard says, “we will definitely be talking to them to see if they’re interested in some kind of consistent commitment.”
While they don’t know what the future of the Chinese club will be, they have plans in place in case no one leads it next year and plans to try and recruit more members.
