Ethnic Festival 2007 in Kansas City

Yesterday Amin and I went to the Ethnic Festival at the Swope Park here in KC. I looked on the Internet the night before, and I found out that the festival is a huge one. There were about 50 participating groups that represent their countries. The activities: on-stage performances, booths for displaying the stuffs from your country, and gerai that sold traditional foods. Sounds exciting?

We got there around 3.30 pm, and it was the time for Malaysian performance. Actually the reason why we went there is to meet other Malaysians (because we have met only a few Msian families since we moved here). But unfortunately the performance was a little bit disappointing and we didn't really meet any Msian families!

There were 4 performances - tarian sarawak, tarian payung, ulik mayang and modern indian dance. Surprise.. suprise.. there were only 4-5 people who joined the performance (including one American guy). And each performance, only 2 people on the stage! So, there were nothing fancy, and I obviously got bored easily ahahahaha.

Tarian sarawak. Menari sorang2. Weird.

Tarian payung, MC kata this kinda dance is performed during the wedding ceremony. Err confusing. I never knew that!

After that, we just walked around the park to see the booths. Anyway, Msian booth was too small, and there was nothing much that they put on the display. Yg lagi pelik, there were 3 American kids who were in charge of the booth when we got there. We were like, ooppss kami silap booth ke???? And about the Msian gerai makanan, there were Chinese (Msian kot) and Americans who were selling the food. Pelik.. pelik...

Gerai jual mknan. Menu: satay, nasi goreng, mee goreng. We didn't buy any, sbb satay tu bukan daging zabihah. And nasi goreng & mee goreng... too common, sendiri bley buat.

Actually, we met one Malay family with 3 kids, but they are from Kansas. They were there before we came, but they said that we were the first Malay family yg diaorg jumpe so far kat festival tu. Pelik kan?

After the festival, we visited Kak Emmy's family (diaorg yg banyak tlg kami masa before & after pindah ke KC). They didn't go to the festival anyways. Korek punya korek sok sek sok sek bergossip... terjawablah segala persoalan. So they said mmg ramai family Malaysian yg tak involve sangat dgn activity2 mcm ni. Too much politics ( I don't really get what she meant, but I think it's about the person yg handle Msian nyer representation, dia tu anak Datuk). Susah jugak la nak ckp mcm mana, because I am still new to this place, and I don't want to be too prejudice.

Skarang teringat masa2 kat Penn State. At least masa kitaorg handle Msian nite, sume org involve, buat performance bersungguh2. Lagi fancy, and much more organized. Nobody cares about politics... bak kata pepatah la kan, bersatu kita teguh, bercerai kita roboh.