7 - Campus Hard or Feature News

 Yale's Old Campus Holds Night Market for Students 

On October 26th, Yale's Asian American Student Alliance (AASA) hosted its annual Night Market event at Old Campus. Over 15 affiliated groups of the Asian American Cultural Center (AACC) set up various food booths and performed dancing and martial arts performances. Approximately 300 students congregated in the Old Campus courtyard to enjoy the food and entertainment. (Yale Daily News)

Photo of students getting food from Yale Daily News' Instagram. 

The AASA sold tickets to the event in a bundle of 3 for $10. One ticket could buy one food/drink from a booth, and students could buy as many bundles as they wanted. 100% of the proceeds from the event went to supporting mutual aid networks in New Haven, Connecticut. 

The AASA's promotion flyer, from Instagram. 

On the AASA's Instagram, they have multiple posts promoting the different organizations that participated in the Night Market. Some of these organizations include the Red Lantern, a Chinese dance troupe that performed a Chinese fan dance, the Chinese American Students Association, which served egg tarts, and the Viatnamese Student Association, which served che thai. The gathering of all of these students at the Night Market allowed Asian American students to make connections and enjoy different foods and traditions. 

The Red Lantern group performing. 

A Yale student, Tina Huang, stated, "For anyone who identifies as Asian, this event is really fun, a good way to hang out with friends, you get to try out a lot of different foods, and you also get to enjoy the performances" (Yale Daily News).

Another Yale student, Ronald Gomez, had some critiques for the event, stating, "I felt the food was good, don't get me wrong, the quality was there, but the portion size was way too small" (Yale Daily News). 

Overall, the Night Market received positive feedback for the food booths and the performances. This is the third time that the AASA has hosted the Night Market since the pandemic. The AASA hopes to improve and make the event bigger next year through earlier planning and participation.