Covered in red, white and blue, BYU-Hawaii’s cafeteria displayed the colors of the Korean flag around its environment on Jan. 22 while students lined up for a variety of food such as bibimbap, kalbi chicken or shoyu-glazed potatoes.
Students watched as Korean pop music played on the television. Some people were dancing along to the music in their seats as friends looked in glee and shared stories with one another.
Lixem Gacad, a junior from the Philippines studying computer science, smiled widely as he shared about the change in the cafeteria’s menu for the night. Although it was not his first time eating Korean food, he explained, “Because some people’s preferences are not the same with other people’s preferences, it’s really important to have diversity on food as well.”
According to students, bibimbap was the most liked dish from the night’s menu. The Club Dining offered bibimbap mixed with thin slices of carrots, bean sprouts, kimchi, meat, an egg, and rice, topped with a sweet sauce that complemented the other ingredients’ flavors. Other food choices offered were kimchi cheeseburgers, sesame fresh steamed vegetables, kkakdugi kimchi, and fruit cake.
Wendy Lau, The Club Dining supervisor, said the quality of the food was excellent because of the love and effort the cooks gave when they prepared the meals. “Each of the chickens for tonight were grilled. [We wanted] to put grill marks on it to give it that nice smoky flavor that you get on a grill, and our prep cooks marinated it,” shared Lau.
When asked about the food, Becky Choi, a senior from Korea studying supply chain management, said, “It’s good, and it’s better than what I expected.” She said she came to the cafeteria because she heard they had Korean food.
One side of the salad bar, which is usually filled with fruits and vegetables on most days, had a full display of different types of kimchi. They had kkakdugi kimchi (cubed radish), cucumber kimchi and traditional kimchi.
Students remarked it wasn’t only the food they enjoyed during the dinner but the games the cafeteria staff prepared for the event as well. The staff gathered several volunteers to play musical chairs while dancing to Korean pop music and they had a trivia quiz as well.
Judemench Casinto, a senior from the Philippines studying accounting, won a prize from participating in the trivia quiz. She shared, “I feel awesome. It was just a simple question, like a general question about Korea, and I won a tent.”
Casinto said the activities encouraged others to join in on the fun. “It was very interactive, and it showed that people were very aware of not just their own culture but other cultures as well. Everyone was trying to be involved with the activity.”
During the quiz, people were running towards the television, where the announcer was, to share their answers. Students laughed as others playfully tried to outrun each other in hopes of winning prizes. The prizes included a backpack, several items of clothing such as T-shirts and hats, and boxes of drinks too.
The Korean dinner took months’ worth of planning and was prepared a semester ago by the committee of the Club Dining. Lau explained, “It takes a team working together really well to be able to put out an event like this or any event… and experience something fun and exciting like this.”
She continued, “We were very excited to have these events because there are so many different cultures, and so we decided to have special mini-events like these to highlight the cultures.”
Writer: Esther Insigne