Flips, kicks and paper-folding tricks were part of Cultural Night on Monday hosted by the Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition as part of Asian Heritage Week.

Yuma Izumi, sophomore in integrated studio arts and president of Japanese Association, started off the event with informing the audience about the culture in Japan. She taught the audience of about 30 how to say “good afternoon” and “how are you” as well as other basic sayings in Japanese.

“It’s nice to let people know our culture. I’m sure it was things people already know but to let them know what the language kind of sounds like and how it feels to say it, it’s different,” Izumi said.

Izumi also taught the audience how to make origami butterflies and balloons.

“I guess it’s just to establish who we are and what we do and where we’re from is what our approach is,” Izumi said.

Members of the Association of Malaysian Students at ISU proceeded to showcase their traditional Lion Dance.

The last event of the night was the Cyclones Martial Arts Club showcasing different martial art techniques from Asia. The club showcased hapkido, a Korean martial art; taekwondo, which is Korean and judo, which is Japanese. The club also taught the audience what the different martial arts were used for and background history.

Tommy Vuong, sophomore in psychology, said he enjoyed getting a sneak peak into all the cultures, especially Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese cultures.

“I [have] always got into … the lion dance. I’ve seen a ton of those,” Vuong said. “I actually wanted to get into it myself.”

John Nguyen, freshman in pre-architecture, said he was glad he got to see interesting groups he hasn’t seen or heard of prior to the event.

“I wish there were more participants because I feel like a lot of people don’t know about this and I would really like it for people to be more involved in this kind of community,” Nguyen said.

His favorite part was when the Cyclone Martial Arts Club performed taekwondo. He said it was interesting and entertaining.

“I’ve heard about them but I haven’t really seen them do their thing, so it was pretty interesting,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen is re-establishing the Vietnamese International Students Association after the organization died in 2010. He said he attended a conference in Michigan where the presenters were Vietnamese and that inspired him to take action.

Tiffany Lam, senior in chemical engineering and president of Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition, said the event made her feel excited.

“We’re actually reaching out to more people than just our club members, which is awesome and we’re collaborating with other groups,” Lam said.

Lam said the goal of Asian Heritage Week and collaboration with Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition was to promote the awareness of Asian-American presence and not just Asian international students, which a lot of people might get confused with.

“There are Asian-Americans here and our culture is different than like for international students. We want to share that and educate people about it,” Lam said. “[We want to] celebrate our heritage.”

Lam’s favorite part of the night was origami because she’s an artsy person and thought it was fun to create something she could take home. She said she hopes the audience learned more about Asian culture, whether it’s from learning origami, a Japanese saying or martial arts.

Lam said members of the Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition are friends outside of club meetings and anyone who is interested in the culture can join.

“The fact that they are even celebrating or joining us in this kind of event is what makes me most happy about it,” Lam said. “And the fact that we’re reaching out to people that aren’t Asians, that’s cool.”

Join the Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition for the last event of Asian Heritage Week on April 21 for Food Night from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at t Black Cultural Center.