IT WASN'T BROKEN

Saturday evening we attended UW-L's 51st International Banquet and although it was a pleasant evening, it fell short of the excitement and chaos of the 12 years we had attended since I had moved to La Crosse. Granted we haven't been able to attend the last couple of years due to calendar conflicts, yet..."If it's not broken, don't fix it" always sounded like good advice to me. Maybe almost 50 years of the International Banquet needed some tweaking but not revamping. The real problem possibly was it was too successful. Everybody wanted to participate.

The last banquet we attended had grown so large that it reached space capacity with some 500 students, faculty and community attending. Long rows of rectangular tables butted ends the entire length of the room with limited space to move in between rows. Different student culture clubs spent hours helping prepare an ethnic dish to be included on the buffet line under the supervision of the kitchen staff. Students even would help serve their countries's dishes. The buffet's international 'smorgasbord' included perhaps almost a dozen and a half dishes, more than could ever fit on one's plate.

A talent show followed dinner that admittedly lasted way too long but was special and diverse. Included within the talent show was even a fashion show, that everybody loved. Gorgeous traditional garb was accompanied by not only explanations but both contemporary and traditional music. Even the evening's dress code exuded cultural pride and the students dressed up nice in either ethnic/ western garb because it was a special evening to showcase and share their cultures. There was excitement in the air.

Flash forward to this year where we entered a quiet room with round tables not filling the entire hall space. Greeters invited us to go to the buffet line before our entire table even had been seated.  Everybody ate at different times. Yes it cut down on long wait lines but every part of the 'past,' long evening encouraged visiting. As for the food now, it was a kitchen staff prepared menu, just 9 'tapa' like dishes which fell short of authenticity and cultural flavor with western interpretation. :(

Truth be told there was one impressive nice community addition as the traditional international flag processional was led by in by the La Crosse and District Pipes and Drums as the campus international students carried in their country flags.

lovely Chinese vocal 

The cultural diversity of the talent leaned toward Asian presentations but maybe they were the only groups who volunteered... AND Talent acts weren't even all university students performing rather a local dance studio performing an Asian dance (?)

Dragon  did join western dance troupe

Western interpretation by local dance studio

and another act were 3 young, (really young) girls from the city's Indian Culture Club. They did a nice job but they weren't university students sharing...

Even the majority of the international students present were from another UW campus  rather than the seats being filling by our own city's students. :(

Yep, disappointed enough for us to depart before the evening was over even though tickets were $25/ per person. We left at 8:30 in-between talent acts compared to previous 10pm departures. I'll stand by that old saying if it's not really broken, don't fix it."

Unless things revert to truly being run by the university students again, we'll be  spending next year's Saturday night International Banquet in the End of the Rainbow Valley wondering if western influence always has to interfere in other cultures...