International Food Festival

Year 2000

Year 2001

Year 2014

 

One of the best Boy Scout events of this past month was the 35th Annual International Food Festival on April 12th at the Claremont Colleges. This was my first time attending this event, and I was very curious about the different types of international foods. Our job during this service project was to change the trash bags and man the First Aid Booth. When I was taking a short break with my food tickets from the troop, I found out that there were more than 23 booths representing different countries, selling exotic foods. There were also many professional performances by different clubs and organizations, such as Africa Soul Dance, 5C Korean Pop Dance, Mariachi Serrano, and Psycho Taiko, which is Japanese Drumming.

Everyone in our patrol, The Eagles, was present. I went to this event because my mom told me that it was worth the time and that both she and my grandma had participated in it. I was already interested in the international food, so it didn’t take too much persuasion from my mom. When we drove to the Colleges at around 11 o’clock with Darren and Wesley, I was eager to start working, although the others didn’t seem so enthusiastic.
    Throughout the whole three hours of service, I kept pretty busy, apart from a couple minutes of eating. I changed more than 30 trash bags, although I did not participate in any First Aid acts apart from treating a weird looking cut on a college student working at the French booth. With twenty tickets from Mr. Raus, our Scoutmaster, I bought lots of diverse food. My favorite was the sausages and boba milk tea from the Taiwanese booth, which was doing a roaring trade with the Claremont community (Go Taiwan!!!). I also visited the Italians for some rich and creamy tiramisu. Another of my favorites was the Vietnamese egg roll with some savory fish sauce. I considered getting another, but after a quick debate with myself, I decided that I would use the last five tickets I had to get some bulgogi (BBQ pork) from the Korean booth. My mom was stuffing her face even more than me!

This experience gave me many things. This service obligation was only three hours long and after that I was already bone tired. I could only imagine how tiring doing physical labor for a living would be. That has motivated me to work even harder to stay away from these types of jobs. Another thing I found out was that I had just participated in a tradition in our family. For three generation, our family has attended this International Food Festival. My mom first took part in this festival in the Chinese Booth when she studied at Claremont Graduate University. Then, the next year, my grandma helped my mom in the booth because my mom was pregnant with me. I felt very honored to have participated in something that has become a tradition to this family. That was why I felt that this event was delicious and traditional.

This was probably one of best the service projects in my time as a Boy Scout. If this service opportunity comes up next year, I will totally go, not only for the service hours, but to keep up the family tradition. Well, I had blast there even when I was changing the trash bags, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in international food!