Techno music could be heard resonating throughout the Memorial Union Friday night as students joined together in the Great Hall for the Moonlight Festival Dance.

The dance, sponsored by the Vietnamese Student Association and the Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition, was held to commemorate Tet Trung Thu, a Vietnamese celebration honoring the phases of the moon.

Duc Vu, webmaster and ambassador for the Vietnamese Student Association, was one of the first there to help hang the glowing lanterns from wall to wall for the event.

“In the Vietnamese culture, it’s a really big thing,” says Vu, sophomore in electrical engineering. “Kids make their own lanterns and have a parade. This happens the day of a full moon and we would just line the streets.”

Vu says the Moon Festival is similar to Halloween in that it is geared mostly toward kids, as they make their own lanterns with the help of their parents.

“The kids make big lanterns that they hang from wooden sticks, about four feet long usually, using bamboo as the framework and anything they can find, most often newspaper for the lantern with a candle to light it up,” Vu says. “Churches get together and make huge lanterns anywhere from 60 to 100 feet long. In Vietnam they make beautiful lanterns – really beautiful with lots of color.”

Suong Phan, ISU alumna and former president of the club, says the Vietnamese families also bake moon cakes for kids to feast upon during the festival.

“There are individual moon cakes representing the moon phase that each child receives, with a big moon cake for the family,” Phan says. “Each family has a special song that they sing for the day of the festival. Kids really love it – parading around with their lighted lanterns decorated as anything they like, usually animals, ranging from chickens to tigers.”

Vu adds that stars are the easiest type of lantern to make and are also common to the parade’s decorations.

In past years, the Vietnamese Student Association has put on Halloween festivals, but this is the first year the club has had a Moonlight Festival because it falls around the same time of year and club members wanted to try something different, Vu says.

“We try to orient ourselves with the American culture,” Vu says. “If we were to hold an event that was aimed too much toward only the Vietnamese culture, then people would become alienated from each group. This allows us to try to get to know each other better.”

He says the festival is a good way for people to get to know more about the club before its New Year’s Festival, which is the club’s big event of the year. With Vietnamese food and cultural entertainment, the New Year’s Festival is always well attended, Vu says. The event will take place on a date in February to be scheduled.

Courtney Segota, freshman in liberal arts and sciences, says she was encouraged to come to the dance by her friends. She says she enjoys the variety of multicultural events held by student groups at Iowa State.

“I love it because I can laugh at my friends and say, ‘Our school in Iowa is more multicultural than yours!’ ” Segota says.

She says she appreciates the layers of diversity at Iowa State.

“I think it’s cool they have multicultural events going on when our nation is so inwardly focused on itself right now,” Segota says.

Along with getting to know and appreciate other cultures, Vu was also happy for the chance for the approximately 100 club members to get a chance to become better acquainted as well.

“The hard thing about the club is that most of us are engineering students,” Vu says. “Most are too busy to participate a lot of the time.”

Vu thinks it is important that students know they are always welcome to attend VSA events.

“If other cultures want to put the effort into taking the time to learn more about us, then we will return their effort in helping them understand our culture,” Vu says.