The Carolina Asia Center announces its celebration of Asia Week 2018, taking place March 19-24 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This campus-wide celebration of Asia includes numerous cultural events, lectures and a film screening, culminating with the Asian Culture Festival.
“In our second annual Asia Week, we hope to highlight Asia’s important role in the world as well as the vibrant presence of Asian culture and traditions on campus,” said Morgan Pitelka, director of the Carolina Asia Center. “We celebrate the strength of Asian studies in our academic programs. We also honor the diverse Asian and Asian American population on campus and the growing communities here in the state of North Carolina.”
This year’s Asia Week brings back some of last year’s traditions while introducing new ones. The Southeast Asian Language Workshop series for language learners of all levels, especially beginners, will be back. The kick-off language workshop will be held March 19, and there will be three additional sessions throughout March and April.
On March 22, four Carolina alumni and graduate school students—Justin Sosne ‘06, Susannah Zeitz, Ph.D candidate in health behavior at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Elaine Townsend Utin ’12 and Kavya Sekar ‘13— will participate in a career panel for Global Asia Career Night. The panelists will share their experiences living and working in Asia and how this impacted their career paths.
Visit the Carolina Asia Center’s website for the full schedule of events, and interact with the center by following its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and using #uncasiaweek.
Several Asia Week events are jointly sponsored with other departments and centers at Carolina. “We are thrilled to collaborate with other centers and departments that also recognize the importance of bringing expertise on Asian topics to our university,” said Mary Lagdameo, associate director of the Carolina Asia Center.
Funding for Asia Week is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, and co-sponsors at Carolina include Phillips Ambassadors, Pi Alpha Phi, Carolina Performing Arts, Center for the Study of the American South, Asian Students Association, Department of Asian Studies and Department of Public Policy.