UCLA Culture Nights: Extended Educational Entertainment

UCLA isn't all about football and an overrated film school (come on, you have to admit that USC's is less selective and has produced more big names). Sure, it's also about fraternities, sororities, non-stop parties, beautiful girls, a coveted business school program, a faculty list of many Nobel laureates, and state-of-the-art research. You probably have already heard about all these characteristics that make UCLA the university that it is. But have you heard of Culture Nights?

Besides "University of California, Los Angeles," "UCLA" also stands for a number of things, like "Under Construction Like Always" and "University of Caucasians Lost Among Asians." Both are apt descriptions. Obviously, Asians are not the only ethnicities represented on the UCLA campus, but there is no Jewish Culture Night or African American Culture Night or Latin American Culture Night (if there is, then it's not widely publicized). There are Thai Culture Night, Vietnamese Culture Night, Korean Culture Night, Taiwanese Culture Night, Pilipino Culture Night, and a Culture Night for almost every other Asian ethnicity you can think of.

The former President of the Association of Chinese Americans (ACA), the largest undergraduate student group at UCLA as of 2004 and producers of one of UCLA's oldest Culture Nights, once said to me after visiting a university somewhere in the East Coast, "They have one Asian club there. It's called Asia. I think Asians [in California, at UCLA] are just club-happy."

He was joking, of course. Culture Nights are not unique to UCLA; they are all over the University of California system (maybe less so at Santa Barbara). California's a special place in that it has perhaps the most ethnically diverse population in the country. Culture Nights are more than a mere excuse for Asians to hang out with one another and form clubs. Much more than that.

They are a vehicle for on-campus cultural student groups to educate the general public about the ethnic diversity of California and America and the history of Asians and Asian Americans, a symbol of the diligence and determination possessed by college students who cooperate for a common goal, and an opportunity to exhibit the kind of quality educational entertainment that can be produced at no cost to the audience.

Asians are not all the same. It is a sad fact that in Southern California, a former co-worker once asked me, "Chinese and Japanese? Aren't they different?" Yes, they're different, and so are Vietnamese and Cambodians, Thais and Laotians, Indonesians and Malaysians. Mexicans are not Guatemalans are not Colombians are not Peruvians, right? Brits are not Australians are not Germans are not Danes, right? Never has a Latino told me that he or she is just "Latino." It's always been as specific as the country, not just the continent or subcontinent. Caucasians, on the other hand, in my experience, are more inclined to just say "white" for the sake of simplicity. But I discourage that. "White" tells me nothing about what your ethnicity is. I don't care if you're mixed with five different European ethnicities. I'm more interested in hearing that than "white." By the way, "American" is a nationality, not an ethnicity. It's an identity but not an ethnic one.

There are as many Cultures Nights as there are because it is necessary. The general public knows the big ones like the Chinese and the Vietnamese, but countries that have typically received minimal international media attention (like Laos and Myanmar) need to have their stories told too. Actually, there is no Laotian Culture Night or Burmese Culture Night, but teaching the general public that they speak Mandarin, not Thai, in Taiwan is probably a good start. Producing a Culture Night is a tremendous amount of work. Some student groups don't have the resources to pull it off.

Each history is different. Many Asian Americans themselves do not know the history of their ancestors. That is why we have Culture Nights.

Most Culture Nights take place on the UCLA campus itself, on the stage of Royce Hall, the first building ever constructed at UCLA. It is a stage on which Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist responsible for most of the music in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale; and many others have performed. Do you know how much it costs for a student group to rent Royce Hall for one night? It is somewhere around $14,000.

How do student groups get that kind of money? They fundraise. Feverishly.

I have only been involved with a small-scale Culture Night, and that was already tons of work. I can only imagine the kind of work required for a full-scale Culture Night.

They fundraise in their local communities. They apply for government agency grants. They have food sales on-campus. They throw parties. They consult with businesses (which is why the appendix of the usually 30-page color or black-and-white program has loads of ads in addition to shout-outs written by those who works on the Culture Night). Student groups do everything they can to raise funds for their Culture Nights. And they do it all year long. They usually start work in the summer and don't stop until winter or spring, when Culture Nights storm UCLA.

The UCLA school year starts in September and ends in June. From January to May, there's a flurry of Culture Nights. The time before is used for preparation; the time after, people need to graduate and get ready for next year. Culture Nights are not the only events organized by student groups, but they are always the biggest.

Auditions take place months before the actual production. Every week, if you walk on-campus at night, you can see them rehearsing in the cold. The week before, the actors, the singers, the dancers, the backstage crew, the presenters, and everyone else involved with the production basically live in Royce Hall to rehearse.

So, I've talked about why Culture Nights exist (and so many of them) and how they're put together, but what are they?

They're plays, so much work put into them that they might rival Broadway productions. Well, maybe not, but you have to keep in mind that these are students, not professionals.

A Culture Night usually goes like this: The President(s) and the Culture Night Producer(s), who usually write the script, come out on stage to greet the audience (it's a big audience - the capacity of Royce Hall is 1800) with a speech. Then the story begins as the lights dim and the curtains are parted, the audience waiting in anticipation. The story's usually about a college-age Asian (in America or Asia or both) going through an identity crisis, a moral dilemma, or some sort of emotional drama. The "commercials" are performances both modern and traditional, ranging from martial arts to hip-hop to song (sometimes in English). If you sit close enough, you can see the detail put into the set.

The story is designed to appeal to all audiences although, arguably, the main target is college-age students. Every Culture Night I've seen, there's been an element of romance (I have always found the female characters, who are more often than not the love interests, to be the most colorful - sometimes the roles are reversed and I have yet to see a homosexual couple onstage). History plays a big part. An older character usually tells the protagonist about the old country. Someone needs to reconcile with their past. Sometimes there's even a direct villain. Frequently you see a friend who acts as the foil of the protagonist. See? Even though the cultural background may be unfamiliar to you, the plot structure won't be (keep in mind that I'm greatly generalizing Culture Night storylines - it would take way too long to give due credit to the individuality of them all).

One complaint I have about Culture Nights is the length. Most run at three and a half hours, which is standard Broadway length, but as good as Culture Nights are, they're not Broadway. Plus, since Culture Nights are free (to anyone with a BruinCard - even if you're not a UCLA student and know no one from UCLA but are interested in attending, you can simply contact the student group) unlike Broadway shows, you're less inclined to stay if you're tired. Still, student groups work so hard and so long to get Royce Hall for just one night. It's only natural for them to want to show and teach as much as possible.