On Sunday, the Bruce Pitman Center was transformed into a multicultural mall for the 28th annual Cruise the World, an event held by the International Programs Office. The event draws thousands of people, students and community members alike, with its food and global displays each year.
“My favorite has got to be the South Korea table. They had japchae this year, which are these noodles with vegetables, and they look like glass noodles. They tasted amazing, honestly,” said Julissa Gonzalez Mendoza, a psychology major in her sophomore year.
“I was here for the flag walk, for the flag ceremony,” she continued. “One of the [performances] I got to watch was the Baile Folklorico, which, that one was pretty awesome. The dances were down amidst the crowd, and it was really nice.”
Food, purchasable with tickets exchanged for cash at the event, remained a focal point. A dozen vendors offered beverages, desserts, meals and snacks. Eventgoers enjoyed refreshments like lassi— a yogurt drink common in South Asia and sold by the Bangladeshi vendor— and passion fruit mousse, sold by the Brazilian vendor, as they went from performance to performance and from booth to booth.
In addition to food, many tables offered pins with their nation’s flags on it, books that could be flipped through and other small souvenirs or trinkets.
“I love looking at all of the different things that people have,” said Aodhán Plantagenet, a Moscow local who has been going to Cruise the World for the past decade. “I love seeing the physical items that other cultures make. I’m always a big fan of any Native American tribes that come around, like this year with the Nimiipuu tribe and all of their beadwork. I have Native American family ancestry, so I always love seeing what— not necessarily my people, but what indigenous tribes have made because it reminds me of my own culture.”
For certain eventgoers like Plantagenet, Cruise the World provides an opportunity to connect with a broader culture they identify with. For many of the volunteers running the booths— particularly international community members— Cruise the World provides an opportunity to share their culture with others.
In a previous interview with The Argonaut, Saif Sikdar Riyadh, part of the student committee for the event, spoke of the pride with which he’d participated in the Bangladesh committee in prior years. Meanwhile, other booths were run by organizations dedicated to the sharing of culture or by people that had traveled to certain countries in the past.
“This kind of promotion, it’s really good,” said Fedelina Dag Imán Shaw, president of the Filipino and Friends of the Palouse. “It’s a motivation for kids to go around the world and experience the culture, the food.” Over time, her organization has remained dedicated to sharing Filipino culture and food locally and has tabled with Cruise the World in the past.
Each year, months of planning go into the event; it is the largest that the IPO holds. Mimi Kestle, the program coordinator of the IPO, had previously discussed working on outreach to nearby towns, but the coordination didn’t halt as the event drew closer. This year’s Cruise the World had over 80 volunteers, working not just on tabling and performing but also on things such as monitoring recycling and composting bins.
“We were standing outside of trash cans and making sure everybody throws the right things away in the right spots,” said Bryce Johnson, a freshman majoring in business and part of the University of Idaho men’s rugby team. “[People] were pretty good about it, I thought they were fine. I like to try and make people laugh. It’s pretty easy when it’s a light subject like that.”
After finishing their volunteering shift, Johnson and his friends grabbed a travel guide to investigate the booths. Small “passports” were designed for the event, which people could get stamped at different booths and show for a small commemorative pin.
Between performances, presentations, food and the booths themselves, Cruise the World offered many entertainments and a rewarding experience for volunteers, organizers and “tourists” alike. This year’s event was one more success in a longstanding tradition of showcasing multiculturalism at the UI.
“Cruise the World is so special and so important,” Kestle said. “Historically we’ve done it to celebrate the achievements of international education, and the fact that even though we’re a small town in Moscow, we bring so many people from abroad here to the campus… It’s so rewarding to see this community come together to celebrate.”
Cal Torres can be reached at [email protected]