HUB fair crafts world cultures

Students walking into the HUB Ballroom or Basement yesterday may not have realized they were still in University Park.

A variety of different foods were featured at the fair including: pisang goreng, an Indonesian dessert, tres leches, a milky pound cake from Costa Rica and mousakas, a Greek dish with eggplant, tomato and ground beef.

More than 1,000 people attended the fair throughout the day.

Jim West (graduate-management science and information systems), Naomi Dogan (graduate-counseling psychology) and Jeeseon Park (graduate-counseling psychology) were a few of the people enjoying the food and the fair.

West feasted on dishes from Thailand, Latin America and a Persian rice dish. Dogan went with Indonesian, Chinese, Greek and Korean. Park enjoyed Turkish and Thai foods.

"I come here every year, and I have a great time," Dogan said. "There aren't any good international, ethnic restaurants in State College -- so I come here for the food."

West appreciated the variety of food.

"The range of food is a welcome addition to the cuisine of State College," West said.

While various ethnic foods were available in the Ballroom, the HUB Basement housed arts, crafts and cultural displays which were available for sale and viewing.

Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, was on display at the Japanese Friendship Association's table. Hideaki Aburatani (graduate-material science), a member of the Japanese Friendship Association, said origami takes a lot of practice.

"Once it's learned though, it's a very enjoyable past time for the Japanese people," he said.

A wood burning table was also a feature at the fair. Sam Chaar (graduate-hotel, restaurant and institutional management), created wood-burned pieces with people's names for free. He also showed several portraits he created, including a caricature of University President Graham Spanier.

"Wood burning was originally intended for doing simple designs, but I took it a step further when I started doing portraits," he said. "(Portraits) are difficult to do because of the attention and detail needed."

Drawing the portraits beforehand is easy, he said, but burning the designs is what takes the most time.

Spanier made a guest appearance at the fair, checking out the different foods and organizations.

"I came by here last year, and I enjoyed the food and ambiance, so I wanted to stop by again," he said. "I love food of different countries, so I have a hard time choosing favorites. I've been to many places in the world, and I always see something here that I've never seen before."

Spanier also appreciated the enthusiasm of the international students.

"There are few places at the University where we see as much excitement and loyalty as we do with the international students," Spanier said. "They have an awfully good time each year doing this."

Bob Goerder, the former international liaison of the Alumni Association, was also present at the fair to provide information on international alumni chapters.

"My main interest here is in keeping international students in touch with Penn State and making them aware of our contacts overseas," he said.