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Azalea International Folk Fair returns next weekend
By Dean Poling
VALDOSTA â€" Valdosta Asian Cultural Association’s Azalea International Folk Fair has always had an eye on bringing the world to South Georgia, and continues doing so this week.
This year, the fair hosts several students from Asia to demonstrate their inventions. Several students from Taiwan and the Philippines are expected to arrive this weekend.
“These Taiwanese and Filipino students and educators deserve our gratitude for their willingness to travel so far and pay so much (the airfare alone is $1,500 per person) in order to celebrate with us the joys of science, technology and cultural understanding,†says Serena Huang, the fair’s creator.
The fair celebrates the diversity of the Asian world which is alive here in many of Valdosta’s residents of Asian heritage. Local residents, from various parts of the Asian world, present fashions, customs, and tastes of their respective cultures, sharing both the similarities and differences of their native lands with those of their adopted home of South Georgia.
The event has changed through the years with funding not only from local businesses, state agencies and corporations but the National Endowment of the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Asian Cultural Experience has grown into a premier event in South Georgia.
The fair, originally called the Asian Cultural Experience, grew from Huang’s desire to share her native Asian culture and customs with her two children being raised in South Georgia.
Several years ago, Huang started with a few dance lessons for her daughter and son’s classes at Hahira Middle and Dewar Elementary schools. Huang thought her youngsters may be more accepting of the idea of learning of their parents’ culture if they could share it as an educational and fun project with their classmates.
Soon, other classes were participating in the program. Then, other schools signed on. And these students’ recitals of Chinese-Thai dances slowly became day-long events at Mathis City Auditorium, then more multi-cultural and multi-day events at the conference center.
The event now includes the invention categories, a world’s geography contest, a dance competition, food, games and more.
FOLK FAIR
The Azalea International Folk Fair.
School field trips are scheduled for 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
When: The community festival is scheduled for 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday.
Where: James H. Rainwater Conference Center, off Norman Drive.
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