Every year, Union’s international student association, World Around U, celebrates cultures and diversity with a fair featuring food and artifacts from all around the world.

This year, the event was called “Pangea,” named after the supercontinent that eventually broke into the continents we have now.

According to the organizers, this theme was chosen to celebrate “a world without walls.”

This international festival is World Around U’s biggest event of the year and, according to Hein Htet Aung ’18, this year’s was a great success. Aung stated, “It was awesome!”

The fair was funded by Union’s international students office. Assistant Director of International Advising Michelle Pawlowski oversaw the process of creating the fair, which began over a month before the event took place.

While the organizers scheduled the fair outdoors, inclement weather forced the fair to move inside, on the second floor of the Wold Center.

“It would have been better if it were outside, but it was still great,” Aung commented.

Prior to the starting time of 4 p.m., the logistics were already well laid out.

Three rows of tables spanned the space in front of Starbucks, each table a country that Union has student representatives.

The food and festivities attracted many students and faculty members alike.

President Ainlay was  also seen taking pictures with World Around U members.

The Taiwanese students brought to the fair specialities that composed a typical breakfast in Taiwan, including egg pancake and milk tea.

The Greek students prepared spanakopita – a type of spinach pie – for attendees.

Vietnamese students fried homecook spring rolls and mixed milk coffee, and Nepali students cooked the country’s special curry.

Apart from food, booths of students from Japan, Morocco and many other countries featured cultural artifacts like stickers, paintings, tea sets and jewelry.

Music in various different languages were constantly playing in the background.

The students also gave live performances, drawing rounds of applause from the whole Wold Atrium.

My Nguyen ’21 stated, “The fair showed how much Union cares about diversity in college.”

“You can see that the students put a lot of effort into this fair. We want to present our cultures to Union and spread the love for diversity,” Minh Le ’20 said.