K-pop, Chinese Calligraphy, Indian Cuisine and Azerbaijani Songs: All of Asia Visits HSE University

EXTRA.HSE

In February 2023, the HSE University Cultural Centre hosted the festival ‘Colour of Asia: From Riyadh to Tokyo’ coordinated by the university’s Korean Club. A total of 24 student organisations took part in arranging the festival, including national, environmental, and charity clubs.

In September 2022, Giulkhar Bairamova, head of the HSE University Korean Club, proposed organising a festival that unites various Asian traditions and cultures. This is not an easy task, given the huge size and diversity of the region. Giulkhar herself is from a country in the region and has an interest in Korean culture. Her fellow club members immediately supported the idea and started drawing up a list of clubs who could contribute to the atmosphere of the event.

Giulkhar Bairamova

After coming up with the list of clubs, funding was an urgent issue, as the large scale of the event required significant spending. The autumn Student Project Contest was coming up and we decided to take part. The Korean Club had never taken part in any competitions like that before, so we didn’t have much hope of winning. On November 10, we found out that we had won 300,000 rubles to implement our project.

The Asian festival featured five interactive areas. Visitors to the dance hall could attend master classes on national dances, yoga, and K-pop random dance, which involves copying clips from dance numbers by Korean artists. The participants who performed the largest number of successful repetitions won prizes from the organisers: albums by K-pop groups and tote bags with the festival logo.

In the small hall, professors and students gave lectures about the cultures of Kalmykia, India, China, and Israel.

The co-working space hosted an Indian tea ceremony with teachers from the Institute of Asian and African Studies. The halls of the centre hosted master classes on Chinese and Korean calligraphy, as well as areas curated by student organisations representing India, East Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Kalmykia, Kyrgyzstan, Israel, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The event also featured two quests from the Genshin Club and the Chamber of Nationalities. There was also a photo zone with cardboard cutouts of Jackie Chan, Jungkook from BTS, Suleiman the Magnificent, Shah Rukh Khan, and Hideo Kojima.

The highlight of the festival was the evening concert, which began with a performance by the HSE University Orchestra conducted by Rishat Daulyatshin. The programme included Azerbaijani songs, performances on the komuz, Kyrgyz, Indian, Indonesian and Vietnamese dances, and K-pop.

The hosts also revealed interesting facts about each of the countries, including:

Legend has it that Zarathustra (Zoroaster) was born in Azerbaijan, and Zoroastrianism (the main religion before Islam) became widespread there.

Bishkek is the only city in the world to be named after a wooden household implement—the name means ‘milk churn’.

A traditional Vietnamese wedding can have up to 1,000 guests, and brides often wear a red dress.

The famous song ‘Gangnam Style’ is named after the district of Gangnam-gu in South Korea and references the luxurious lifestyles of its inhabitants.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims—making up 12% of all Muslims in the world. The country is also home to Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple.

The festival was full of fun, memories, and delicious national cuisines. The organisers plan to make it an annual event.