The Asian Student Union (ASU) held a mocktail mania competition on Thursday, April 3rd, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Elings Hall.
Teams competed to create the best mocktail drink within 7 minutes.
Ethan Kono, vice president of the ASU and a senior in cyber security engineering, said the mocktail-making competition is inspired by a chance for people to be creative.
“We wanted to host a general board meeting where people kind of get the experience to work with each other in different teams as usual, an environment where they feel like they can have creative expression,” Kono said.
“It’s always a goal with our general board meetings to bring people together who usually wouldn’t talk to each other,” Danton Dang, an intern at ASU and a junior in software engineering, said.
“We thought it’d be a good experience to bring a little competition, to bring people together and work together other than just socializing,” Dang said. “It builds a little bit of that connection as they’re trying to reach the same goal. And it’s a fun little thing to have something consumable that our judges judge, and having that feedback, seeing the expression on the judge’s faces and everyone reacting is fun. Having fun is always a part of it. So just bringing people together, building those connections is hopefully blossoming into a friendship.”
Kono said the qualities and elements they look for in a winning mocktail are a little bit mixed up of everything.
“I think what definitely sold us the first place was the creative aspect of service that they introduced. I’d say definitely taste is a big part of it, too. But I think, ultimately, what sold first base was creativity,” Kono said.
Dang added that the creativity really surprised him.
“Even though I wasn’t judging, having someone with napkins and the chasers out that, really added to the experience of it. It was originally a mocktail competition, with them bringing in that extra aspect of having good service and a good story, which really brought up their score,” Dang said.
Kono said creating spaces for students to come together and have fun in a supportive environment is one of ASU’s top priorities.
“Our goal is not just to bring together Asian identities and cultures but people in general,” Kono said. “We’re very big about being inclusive and including everybody, regardless if you’re Asian or not. So it’s people interested in wanting to learn more about the Asian identity and cultures, how we kind of accept and just try to bring people together, so I think that’s a high priority. The number one big goal is usually how we try to look at our events, ‘how can we get people to interact, connect with each other, and kind of experience Asian identity?’”
Dang said all ASU’s previous events have some sort of community behind them.
“The tournaments are just socials, bringing people together – we want to bring everybody together to appreciate Asian cultures,” Dang said. “As a personal story, I’ve met a lot of my friends that I met this year through ASU. These are people I’ve studied with finals with, get lunch with, get dinner with.”
Kono encouraged students to run for the upcoming ASU Executive Board.
“[ASU] is looking for people to take over, keep the tradition of bringing people and cultures together, and express that Asian identity throughout Iowa State,” Kono said. “Even if you have a little bit of interest in attending one of our events or joining the executive board, I’d say definitely give it a shot. I think everyone is more than welcome to introduce themselves, creating a new community for other people, and just accepting anybody who’s looking to experience different cultures and just find a sense of community.”
Dang wanted to make it clear that people don’t have to identify with any of the Asian cultures to be a part of the club.
“It is a social club where people come together and just appreciate the culture,” Dang said. “To speak more in the future, I guess next year, look out for InnovAsian. It’s an event that we hosted this past Saturday, a lot of fun events, and with the first one being so successful and laying the groundwork and having more time to plan, next year’s will be even bigger. So please look out for that, and we hope to see everybody there.”
More about the Asian Student Union, including events, updates and club meetings, can be found on their Instagram page.
