After a long weekend of chopping tomatoes and onions, steaming rice and preparing pork, chicken and salmon, the Penn Hawaii Club served up traditional Hawaiian fare and entertained some 300 guests with games and dance at its Eighth Annual Lu'au last Saturday night.
Following a frantic but fun-filled evening with hula dancers rushing behind the curtain to change amongst several rice cookers and backpacks piled up in a corner, Lori Kim, the club's co-president, was happy with the event's success.
The annual lu'au is its main fundraising event of the year. With guests paying $10 each for an evening of entertainment, including dinner, dance and several opportunities to win prizes -- chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, candles, necklaces and calendars, to name a few -- the event was a profitable opportunity to share Hawaiian culture.
A majority of the profits will go toward "trying to help Hawaiian freshmen adjust to East Coast life," explained Kim, a Wharton senior.
In order to help students transition, the club pairs freshmen with older students to serve as their big brother or big sister for the year. Some of the club's activities include an annual October bus trip to the King of Prussia Mall so that freshmen can stock up on winter clothes, a snowboarding trip and a gathering just to cook "food we miss from home," Kim said.
But in order to fund such activities, devoted club members pitched in all semester practicing dances and planning the details for this weekend's event.
Born and raised in Hawaii, College senior Inga Earle participated in many of the dances, including a hula and a traditional ballad dance.
And although she chopped more than 100 tomatoes to help make the Lomi Lomi Salmon, Earle still maintained that "the most consuming part was the dance practices."
Working the outside door handing out shell leis, College sophomore Yvonne Chan looked forward to the "after-party for all of us working."
Tired from a long week of promoting the lu'au, Chan added that the group's advertising was "mostly word-of-mouth, because we didn't want to spend a lot on flyers."
But all the hard work paid off, as those in attendance seemed to agree that they got their money's worth.
Overall, the food seemed to be the biggest hit of the evening.
"It's good, it's really good," College sophomore Krysta Hill said. "There's like something different. There's every kind of taste here."
Others seemed to enjoy taking part in the games, which included trivia, a Hawaiian version of "rock-paper-scissors" called "jan-ken-po" and a poi-eating contest -- a sour-tasting Hawaiian staple starch made from pounded taro root.
College senior Jessica Stender was lucky enough to win a necklace and a bag of fruit-and-nut mix after participating in one of the games.
Like many of those in attendance, Stender came to support her friends in the club.
"One of my roommates and good friends is in the club," she said. And while it may not have been lu'au weather, the Hall of Flags in Houston Hall provided a toasty atmosphere for the club's annual event.
