The Taiwanese Student Association (TASA) hosted “A Ramen-tic Night” in celebration of traditional Taiwanese cuisine on Saturday in Charles Commons. The free event featured chicken and vegetarian ramen, Taiwanese tea eggs and Chinese sausage as well as a raffle to win two tickets to TASA’s Night Market event in late April. The ramen was served with fish balls, tofu, eggs, bean sprouts, carrots and corn.
Ramen and tea eggs are a ubiquitous part of Taiwanese culture, so popular they are carried in convenience stores like 7-Eleven. Tea eggs have their shells cracked before being boiled in a mix of tea and spices.
TASA Programming Chair Allan Wang discussed how the event’s theme was chosen.
“When we were brainstorming themes, [the junior officers] originally wanted to do a convenience store kind of theme because in Taiwan, 7-Eleven and OK Marts are very popular, but logistically that would have been too difficult because there are too many dishes,” he said. “They decided to focus on ramen, which is pretty common, and tea eggs, which you can buy in any convenience store in Taiwan.”
A Ramen-tic Night was created and run entirely by junior officers.
“It’s a smaller event just to help junior officers get experience with programming,” Wang said.
Junior officers said the event gave them a good idea of what is involved in programming an event and allowed them to feel more integrated into TASA.
“Normally we have committee chairs that do everything, and we just do what they assign us to do,” Amy Xiao said. “They said that this was a really good way for us to plan things and execute things, and obviously we have run into some obstacles, and now we know what to expect and then how we can deal with them.”
Xiao also said she got to know the other junior officers better.
“[C]ooking together made us feel like more a part of TASA instead of just being the underlings. We’re starting to come together as a part of the group.”
Junior Officer Vivian Jou agreed the constant teamwork helped everyone bond.
“We had to figure out rooms, like booking a room, and then we had to do a lot of coordination between the junior officers, just like who’s going to do what, who’s going to buy what, what ingredients to buy and what portions, how many people to expect,” she said. “And then we also had to book the kitchens because we obviously had to cook the food.”
The junior officers also faced challenges due to their lack of experience. Jou described the difficulties with cooking all the food and attempting to come up with a title for the event.
“We had to coordinate a lot between us junior officers, like trying to decide on a final theme. We were flip-flopping between so many ideas, and it was just like, we finally decided on ramen,” she said. “That was actually one of the hardest parts of the event, just coming up with a name. ‘Ramen-tic’ was just a pun — that was basically the main reason.”
Xiao said the biggest obstacle was trying to estimate how many people would come to the event and making sure there would be enough food for everyone. Food ran out by 7:42 p.m., nearly an hour before the advertised end of the event.
Wang said a low turnout was expected.
“We can’t put too much stress on our younger officers so it’s scaled back,” he said. “We have less food, and we don’t publicize it as much because it’s a smaller event just to help junior officers get experience with programming.”
Student reactions to the event were positive, with most attendees saying they came for the free food. Freshman Lalit Varada praised the cuisine.
“It was pretty good,” he said. “I don’t know what I expected but it exceeded my expectations.”
Freshman Jim Huang, who is Taiwanese and a member of TASA, said he greatly enjoyed the food.
“I also like the sausages. You can’t find anything like them in Baltimore so it’s pretty cool that they have the sausages because it reminds me of home,” he said.
The event also helped deepen students’ understanding of Taiwanese culture.
Freshman Celine Arpornsuksant, who did not know ramen is popular in Taiwan, said she now has a deeper appreciation for Taiwanese cuisine.
TASA will host a Night Market on April 23.
“[The Night Market] is the biggest event of spring semester where we decorate the entire Mattin courtyard,” Xiao said. “Last year we had Eclectics come and lots of food and lots of fun games. It’s a big event. Everyone should come.”
