The district’s annual Asian Night event resumed April 8 after a two-year hiatus as Chapel Hill High School’s Asian Student Association (ASA) and East Chapel Hill High School’s Asian Pacific American Club (APAC) worked together to hold the event at East Chapel Hill High School.
Asian Night includes performances from students and community members to celebrate Asian culture. This year, 30 acts auditioned and 15 were selected to perform during the two-hour event.
The performances comprised dances, instrumental pieces or vocal acts with a brief intermission for audience members to interact in and around the East Chapel Hill High School auditorium.
All of the event’s proceeds benefit the One Sky Foundation, an organization that supports orphaned children in China, Vietnam and Mongolia. Altogether, Asian Night was able to raise $1,000 for One Sky, according to ASA president Laura Cai.
“From the times I have attended Asian Night, I really loved the lively environment, especially during the dinner when everyone was eating, socializing and participating in the games and riddles set up,” Cai, a senior, said.
Cai was one of the three members of the student-run planning committee for Asian Night. The two others were seniors Zoe Chu and Henry Liu, co-presidents of the APAC. The three officers had been working together since October to plan the event.
Chu was also one of four hosts for the event and said she hopes the event made audience members see past common stereotypes about Asian culture.
“I really hope to raise awareness for the Asian Community and to allow people to see us as more than the model minority myth, the East Asian countries or kpop and anime,” she said. “I want people to come to Asian Night and see that Asians are three-dimensional—that Asians are more than stereotypes of being successful and smart.”
As a host, Chu was only able to watch a few performances, though she mentioned her favorite performance was the Duke Temptasians, a co-ed acapella group from Duke University.
“[The Temptasians] sang beautifully and they always give off such elegant but down to earth vibes,” Chu said. “It always makes me so happy to see them.”
Senior ASA member Savannah Xu attended Asian Night and mentioned her favorite performance was the guzheng performance; a guzheng is a traditional Chinese instrument similar to a zither.
“[The guzheng performance] was different from all the other acts, which were mainly dancing, and the instrument itself makes a beautiful sound,” she said.
Xu also enjoyed the audience engagement levels during the performances, especially with the Chinese Dragon Team.
“I really liked how the dragon weaved through the audience, further engaging the audience,” Xu said. “Overall, it was really nice to be back attending Asian Night.”
East Chapel Hill High School senior and APAC club officer Christina Ahn said Asian Night offered students not only the opportunity to enjoy performances from a variety of Asian countries, but also to embrace connections between cultures.
“Asian Night is not simply a celebration of different types of Asian cultures, but something much deeper than that,” she said. “It is a bonding of different Asian cultures to showcase the beauty of them that is often hard to see in the town of Chapel Hill.”
Ahn said this year’s Asian Night was especially important given some of the issues faced by the Asian community around the world during the pandemic. Hate and violence toward Asians and Asian-Americans reached new highs since COVID-19 originated in China in December of 2019.
“With everything that has happened in the past year related to Asians, Asian Night is a reminder of why we as a large group should be celebrated, loved and appreciated,” Ahn said.
Chu added that she hopes future Asian Nights will incorporate “a Stop Asian Hate fund or a spotlight for standout Asian creators.”
Freshman Angela Yang was one of three performers from Chapel Hill High School this year. Yang was a member of two group performances: a dragon dance with the Chinese School at Chapel Hill (CSCH), and a kpop dance set to “PTT (Paint the Town)” by Loona and “Cherry Bomb” by NCT 127.
“I’ve been looking forward to Asian Night for a long time because I wanted to show off just how amazing our dances are,” Yang said. “By sharing performances that showcase the beauty of our culture, different people are brought together to appreciate it.”
In previous years, Asian Night also included a banquet before the performances and a fashion show afterward, though, due to concerns with the pandemic, neither took place this year.
“The only thing that I hope will change is the fact that there will be a fashion show and food next year,” Yang said. “I’m a freshman, but I heard about how awesome that experience was.”
