By Ya-Ning KuoContributor

A swirl of food, music, dances and games describes theInternational Peace Village held on campus Oct. 27. Participants saidthe event was a big success.

International Peace Village was part of San Diego StateUniversity’s second annual World Peace Week, held to demonstrate howpeople around the world can put away their differences and respecteach other.

More than 30 booths were set up in Aztec Center, representingdifferent countries and cultures around the world. Each boothprovided information about places, art, games, food, customs,language and cultures of their countries. Nine international peaceorganizations were also represented during this event.

“It is just absolutely wonderful,” said Dipak Gupta, publicadministration and urban studies professor, who created Peace Week.”When I developed the concept, I couldn’t have imagined it would endin such a joyful way. (The Peace Village) was the peak of the wholething”

About 1,000 people attended the 3-hour event — the first everduring World Peace Week — hosted by the International StudentAssociation. A similar annual event, the International Festival, hadbeen held for more than 40 years. Emily Maxon, International StudentCenter program coordinator, said ISA called it International PeaceVillage this year because it corresponded with World Peace Week.

“We often talk about celebrating diversity,” said Provost NancyMarlin. “Peace Village was an extraordinary example of just such acelebration.”

“Between the dancing, music, native dress and food, there werewonderful conversations in which we all learned more about the truediversity of human experience. I was extremely proud of SDSU forcreating such a venue.”

Maxon organized the event and said it took nearly two months toplan and all the efforts were worth it.

“I was nervous about how these booths would get along, and thingswent more smoothly than I expected,” Maxon said.

Maxon said she asked participating booths to keep political issuesaway in order to avoid disharmony. She said many students from theMiddle East and Kurdish culture were eager to inform people aboutpolitical conflicts in their hometowns. Maxon said she asked thestudents not to talk about politics because sharing friendship andculture were the main purposes of the event.

“Sometimes we lose our perspectives because we focus on politicstoo much,” Maxon said. “I think this is an opportunity for people tocome together to focus on culture, on the positive aspect ofdifferent people.”

Hisham Kaaki, a media management junior who represented the SaudiArabia booth, said the event was a great way for people to learnabout the country.

“We have been educating people about our culture, architecture,religion and food in Saudi Arabia,” Kaaki said. “We are trying totell people who we are.”

International business junior Antonio Putrino, who manned Italy’sbooth, said the event was a good opportunity to expose his countryand also to get to know other nations. He passed out handoutscontaining phrases in Italian.

“I got to know many people from many

other countries which doesn’t happen very often,” Putrino said.

Information and Decision Systems junior Ramez Noaman, whorepresented Eritrea, Africa, said he finally understood the politicalconflict between North and South Korea by talking to students at theKorea booth.

“I can learn about 10 different cultures by just walking around,”Noaman said.

Educational technology graduate student Yiftach Levy, whorepresented Israel, said it was an honor to represent his country andto answer questions about Jewish religion and political conflictswithin Israel.

“It makes me very proud and it makes me feel very happy to shareinformation with people about my country,” Levy said.

Four groups also performed music and songs from Australia,Yugoslavia, African and Brazil.

Professional musician Ben Jamin, who played African drumming,singing and dance, said performing in front of a large group ofinternational people was a great experience. At one point during theshow, Jamin brought the audience on stage to drum with him.

“It was great when people participated in the show,” Jamin said.”It is always fun to bring people together because it is what musicis all about.”

During the event, 10 groups presented a fashion show displayingtraditional dress from their countries. Maxon said Chinese andTaiwanese students standing on stage together was symbolic becauseChina and Taiwan have been separated by political differences formore than 50 years.

About 140 students from Rosa Parks Elementary School also visitedthe festival. They were welcomed by culture presentations fromstudents of India and Saudi Arabia, where they were taught phrases inthe cultures.

Second grade teacher Yazmin Vargas said it was a good chance foryoung children to learn about other cultures in life.

“It is very good for them to see and to respect other cultures,”Vargas said. “They can understand that it’s OK to be different.”

Gupta said peace is the purpose of the International Peace Villageand people should not give up on the idea of creating a peacefulworld.

“The world is very sad and there are many conflicts going on,”Gupta said. “Peace is a process, not a quick outcome. It is like anyrelationship two people may have. You have to constantly work on it.”

The next World Peace Week will be held in Spring 2002.