About 250 students enjoyed the culture, food and music of 15 different countries at the second annual Global Village event, organized by the International Club and International office, at the Grand Salon in the University Student Union last Thursday.

Countries such as India, Lebanon, Japan, Sweden, Nicaragua, China and Kuwait, and two additional organizations from campus, Habitat for Humanity and South Asian club, shared their own culture and programs to visitors.

‘The purpose of this event is to bring all the international students and CSUN community together to learn about different countries around the world and taste different kinds of food,’ said Lebanese grad student, event organizer and International Club President Rosaline Tashajzn.

CSUN has ranked high in California in terms of international student enrollment, which continues to grow each year.’ About 2,000 international students were enrolled at CSUN in the 2006-07 academic year, according to an annual report by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

‘I learned a lot. It is important for people to be aware of different cultures and different countries, and just go explore everything out there,’ said Luda Gogolushko, a recreation and tourism management major from Russia said.

The international students at CSUN come from over 100 countries and create the diverse campus. The largest number of them is dominated by Asian students from China, Korea and Japan.

The free event was part of International Education Week 2008 that took place from Nov. 17 to 21, which included World Poster Session, International Movie Night, ‘Ciao Professore’ and the Culture and Change events.

There were various representatives at each table to show visitors their culture, traditional ornaments, books and pictures of their country.

Nicaragua’s table displayed plantain chips and pictures of the tropical country which has 25 volcanoes and whose slogan is ‘Land of Lakes and Volcanoes.’

‘I want everyone to get to know my country little bit more and they can taste some of things that we eat and some facts like population, main city and languages we speak,’ said Ilse Mojica, Nicaraguan graduate student.

Some of the representatives wore their country’s traditional clothing as well.

Tashajizn, who wore a belly dance costume, said the dance originated from Egypt, but many Lebanese people have learned the dance.

At Lebanon’s table, a DVD of the country’s most widely-known and popular winery, Ch’acirc;teau Ksara, was shown.

Chinese Student Association (CSA) displayed few Chinese ornaments and a big flag of Beijing Olympic 2008 that lately caught big attention from all over the world.

‘Everybody is happy to come, so it is a good activity,’ Beibei Wu, a financial services senior and representative from China said.

One of the South Asian countries represented at the event, India, is geographically the seventh largest country and second most populous country.’ The booth featured photos of famous Indians, such as Mahatma Ghandi.

‘India is famous for everything like culture, festivals, different languages and geography,’ said Dhruv Patel, engineering management graduate student and representative from India said.

‘(The Global Village) is very important for us because it makes people aware of different countries to diminish stereotypes.’ Just meeting people from different countries’hellip; will give them different perspectives of countries,’ Tashajzn said.