The 2013 Chinese Food and Culture Festival kicked off yesterday with an opening day ceremony and festival banquet that included live entertainment, performances and celebrities.
Heidi Zhang, the director of international training programs with the College of Continuing and Professional Education at Cal State Long Beach, said celebrity Chef Martin Yan demonstrated his cooking techniques at the festival banquet, including blindfolded noodle stretching. Chef Wu also gave a fruit and vegetable carving performance.
According to Zhang, this is the third year that the weeklong Chinese Food and Culture Festival will take place at CSULB, and special events run through Thursday.
“This event is to promote international cultural exchange,” Zhang said. “It also fits our university’s mission to [globalize] the campus.”
Zhang said CSULB’s International Training Programs took the leading role in putting the event together, and they have been preparing for it since February.
“I [took] the proposal to my boss Dr. Jeet Joshee for approval, then we set up a committee for the event,” Zhang said.
The process included working with supporters from China, booking the event spaces and contacting many people who would potentially be interested in participating.
“We work with many supporters of the event, such as China Central Television, International News Daily and all of our staff at CCPE,” Zhang said.
Today and Wednesday from noon to 2 p.m. there will be an art exhibition and cooking show in the University Student Union Alamitos Bay Room and Courtyard.
Zhang said that there will be cooking demonstrations, but students may not taste the food.
The closing ceremony will take place Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the USU Alamitos Bay Room where prizes will be awarded.
Zhang said that there will be prizes for the “A Bite of China” Marketing Plan Contest, in which the first place award is a nine-day tour in China. Second place will be a three-day Yangzhou tour in China.
People can also watch “A Bite of China” and enter into a general drawing for prizes by completing a quick survey on the event’s website.
The first prize for the general drawing includes a round-trip ticket to China and three nights in a hotel in Yangzhou, and the second prize includes a three-day Yangzhou hotel stay.
All of the events are open to the pubic. For additional information or to enter the drawing, visit www.ccpe.csulb.edu/ChineseFCF/html/schedule.html.