By Chang Liu | Focus/Design Editor
Baylor Round Table hosted their annual International Thanksgiving Dinner at Cashion on Wednesday night.
The vice president of BRT and co-chair of the International Thanksgiving Dinner Meredith Moore said the organization provides 260 seats for students and their family members, and the registration list was full.
“We have another 50 Baylor Round Table ladies who we are helping with the event and who are serving as table hosts,” Moore said. “Each table has a Baylor Round Table person and sometimes their husband or somebody from the Center for Global Engagement. And then the table hosts have a little conversation with the students.”
The President of BRT opened with remarks before the attendees ate. While people were eating, President Linda Livingstone and her husband, Bradley Livingstone, shared the history and story of Thanksgiving.
“I love coming to the international student Thanksgiving dinner and celebration,” Livingstone said. “It’s great to celebrate the culture of our students from around the world and then to help them understand a very American tradition of Thanksgiving.”
The meal is a time for international students to learn more about the tradition of Thanksgiving, but also to share their own traditions and cultures with each other.
“I think it’s a wonderful time to bring people together from our campus to have a wonderful meal together … and hopefully learn a little bit about Thanksgiving in the United States and how that might be different than some of the traditions in our own countries,” Livingstone said.
Moore said that they want to share traditional Thanksgiving food with international students, like turkey and pumpkin pies, and the BRT even prepared seven vegetarian food options. The meal was funded by the Office of the President.
Wuhu, China, first-year graduate student Anni Qiang said that the primary reason she attended the dinner was to know more about Thanksgiving.
“I was expecting it to have more cultural elements in it, but it seems not to have a lot of cultural elements in it,” Qiang said.
Ibadan, Nigeria, first-year graduate student Gabriel Oladipupo said that it’s his first time joining a Thanksgiving event, and it was a privilege for him.
“American Thanksgiving is a special event, and we don’t have the same event in my own country,” Oladipupo said. “We only have Christmas celebrations and New Year celebrations. The American lifestyle is different, which I really appreciate.”
