Hundreds of students pushed their way into the crowded Big Gym on April 7 to attend the opening ceremony for this year’s month long International Festival and to hear the touching, and sometimes humorous stories from three speakers.

Two entertaining hosts, seniors Dami Wusu and Yuri Daniels, began the ceremony with the traditional flag procession. Eighty different flags carried by students and staff represented the variety of nationalities represented in Paly’s student body. Though the presentation was nice, some nations’ names were said too quickly and softly, so at points it was difficult to hear.

As flags were displayed, the excitement was building in the auditorium. People were thrilled to see their friends carry flags and to see their favorite country represented. Paly is a diverse school, so it was exciting to see the student body so interested and supportive of other people’s heritages and cultures.

After the flags were displayed, we saw performances that ranged from the Polynesian Club’s traditional Polynesian dance to modern Salsa and Indian dance. Freshmen Ema Latu and Marty Latu and junior Chantal Tafuna preformed a traditional Polynesian dance.

We also saw dances performed by Paly students and alumni. Fabiola Mendoza, a Paly alumna, showed off a salsa dance with two Paly seniors. With modern music, the ‘salsa’ dance featured more hip-hop than salsa. Junior Teja Kondapalli performed a classical Indian dance. The music and dance were exceptionally authentic and also extremely entertaining. I thought she did a good job of keeping the audience’s attention.

During the one hour opening ceremony, we also had three guest speakers with three very different stories. The first speaker, Chivy Sok, is a consultant at the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights. Sok shared a heartfelt story about her childhood in Cambodia as a child slave, something most Paly students could not even try to imagine.

The next speaker, Jerry White, co-founder and executive director of Landmine Survivors Network, told his story with a smile on his face. White dealt with a painful injury when he was a junior in college, after stepping on a landmine while backpacking through Israel.

The way that White described this event to students helped us relate to him. Generally, students found him interesting and inviting to listen to. He looked at the event as a way to reassess his life. White shared stories about how during his travels to Cambodia, where there are many amputees, he met a young woman who told him, "you are one of us." He proceeded to share his experience of talking with the Dalai Lama. "There is no us and them," the Dalai Lama said, according to White. White’s message taught us that we are all one world and we are all united. Each of our actions can affect someone else.

The last speaker was Nicole Sanchez, from the Bay Area. In the beginning of her speech, she made it quite clear that she did not have a shocking story to tell. While Sanchez’s speech was not as captivating as the previous speeches right off the bat, Sanchez clearly summed up her point by the end. Sanchez came to teach us how we can help, how each of us can make a difference. While that sounds like the usual "everyone makes a difference, everyone counts" discourse, Sanchez really put emotion into it and made the idea of making a difference come alive for me, and to my knowledge, most of the audience.

The speakers that spoke at the ceremony were motivational. They gave me a good perspective on life outside of Palo Alto. In my opinion, the speakers, the diversity, and the tradition were an appropriate opening to the International Festival month.

While the speakers and the ceremony were well orchestrated, they were not the only enjoyable aspect of the day. Paly had an array of international food set up all over the quad. The food was from different areas in the world. Countries that were represented included France (Douce France), China (Jing-Jing), Philippines (Goldilocks), India (Janta), Italy (Pizza my Heart), Japan (Costco), Mexico (Beuno Bueno), and Persia (Robaii).

The food was delicious and reasonably priced. To receive food, students had to buy tickets first, one ticket for one dollar. I thought that this was a very organized way to set up lunch. The tickets made getting food easy and quick, and we didn’t face huge lines like in past international festivals.

Also offered at lunch were strawberry crepes, which were very popular among students. The crepes were made and sold by senior parents as an attempt to raise money to support grad week events. The lines for the crepes tended to be longer than other stands, presumably due to the fact that we could not pay with tickets; we had to use cash.

While International Festival comes to an end, I sense that students gained needed knowledge about other countries. It gave students a different perspective on what life is like outside of Palo Alto. However, the negativity during International Festival was somewhat overwhelming. At the last International Festival we were surrounded by positive activities such as fun and dancing. We learned more about culture and tradition than bombings and war. While I believe it is important for students to see what’s happening around the world, it is also important to learn the good about other cultures. I believe that International Festival should balance the positive and negative of the world such that students become aware of troubling situations but also see the happiness and pride people have for their cultures.