On Thursday, September 7th, I attended the first general interest meeting for the Vietnamese Student Association, also known as VSA. This club aims to promote cultural awareness and give people a better understanding about the Vietnamese culture and heritage. At a first glance, I was not interested in this club because I was not Vietnamese, so I felt like I would not fit into the club well. However, I had a complete change of heart after the meeting was over.
At the beginning of the meeting, we had the opportunity to make our own summer rolls (Gỏi cuốn). We were given lettuce, shrimp, and rice noodles and rice paper. We were taught, step by step, how to create our own summer rolls. The next part of the meeting, the board members of theclub introduced to the different foods in the Vietnamese culture and taught how to pronounce them in Vietnamese. Some of these words included, Chả Giò (spring rolls) , Bún Thịt Nướng (cold rice noodle dish), and Bún bò Huế (Vietnamese noodle soup). I also was familiar with some of the words shownWe also learned greeting phrases such as “xin chào,” which means “hello,” and “cảm ơn bạn,” which means “thank you.”
Overall, I had a great time during this meeting. This club gave me the chance to learn about other ethnic cultures and the types of food they had. I realized that attending this club allowed me to meet and talk to new people and discuss the similarities we had for attending Baruch.
As a result of attending VSA, I’ve grown interest in other cultures, and would love to join another club to learn about another culture in the future. I look forward to attending future meetings events this club has to offer and become a member of this club!
