The first club meeting I went to was the UCLA Club’s Paper Lantern making event. Before going to this meeting I did not know what UCLA stood for; because its also the abbreviation for a university in California. But I later found out the UCLA stands for United Chinese Language Association. The event itself was fun and all the members of this club were very friendly and welcoming. At first, they had a slideshow put together of pictures and activities done during the Chinese Lantern event. Their slideshow was really well put together and they even put in some Chinese translations as well as the word written in both Chinese and English, which was super helpful.

Besides they slideshow, they also taught us a quick and easy way to make a paper lantern. They did a live demonstration as well as played a how to video in the background. Both the video and the live demonstration of this were throughouly explained and simple to follow. After everybody made their lanterns they judged them and picked out winners who then won prizes of Chinese snacks. I was not one of the winners of the foreign snacks. Overall, it was a fun event and really nicely put together.

Even though the event was different and intriguing, I don’t think the United Chinese Language Association is the club for me. I never really had an interest in learning Chinese mostly because other languages have taken priority for me personally. Although the Chinese culture is very unique and cool to learn about, the same goes with other cultures for me to take a higher interest in. I think I will try to attend more clubs and meetings to see what I really enjoy and what I really want to invest all my club hours into.