Iowa Wesleyan students host international expo

MT. PLEASANT – Ever wonder what comfort foods are like around the world? Want to travel to exotic places from the ease of your local neighborhood?

Iowa Wesleyan University students got a unique opportunity to travel around the world Thursday, Nov. 18 at the Howe Student Activity Center.

More than 500 participants from the Mt. Pleasant community got a chance to experience the dress, food and culture of more than 30 countries from six different continents.

Iowa Wesleyan University (IWU) once again hosted its annual International Education Week.

The celebration was held in conjunction with International Education Week as an effort to promote international exchange.

“This is an opportunity to display cultures of the world to the Mt. Pleasant community,” IWU Assistant Dean for International Education Xiaobin Dai said.

Present at the event were participants from the Southeast Community College at Burlington, local students from Mt. Pleasant schools, and Mt. Pleasant community members. IWU is currently home to a total of 103 international students from 35 countries around the world.

Two weeks in the making, students presented their respective countries with various cuisine from their particular countries, while also sharing their homelands unique culture, music and traditional attire.

“It is an opportunity to share our experiences with others,” said Nico Sheck from New Zealand. “This has been great.”

“The event went really well, after we looked at our feedback from the participants, almost everybody said that they are so happy that we have this event, and that they learned a lot about different countries and that they enjoyed being able to taste delicious food from around the world,” Dai said at the conclusion of the event. “We expect that next year’s event could be even bigger.

“Our international participants have told me that they really enjoyed themselves during the event too. I had one student from France that said that this was so fun, she liked being her country’s ambassador, and introducing her country to different people, she liked seeing that they liked her food, the food was all gone rather quickly.”

The students at IWU come to the university through various sources, such as recruitment and sports programs.

“Some of the students come from government funded exchange programs,” Dai said. “We have Russian students, Korean students and even Honduras in those programs. Most of the students come from different recruiting agencies all around the world, online self-registration and through sports programs and coaches.

“Iowa Wesleyan is a traditional college, and throughout its 178 years, we have our reputation built in some of these countries, such as China, Nepal, South Africa and South Korea. We look forward to doing this event again next year with great success.”