Two nights before this year’s Mid Autumn Festival, students at Lanyang Campus organized a campus wide barbecue, their first big-scale event since the beginning of this semester. The organizer was the Regulatory Committee of the Girls’ Dormitory and the venue was the terrace outside the Clement Chang International Conference Hall. The location commands a full view of I-lan Plain and with clear night sky that night, all participants felt lucky to be there to spend such an unusual occasion.

Participants included first and second year students of all five departments at the campus, their lecturers and professors, as well as administrative staff and several military instructors. Hsieh Yi-ting, the Chairperson of the organizer was pleased to see so many people had participated in the event and made the place come alive. Usually, she pointed out, Lanyang is a quite and tranquil place, so, she added, it was good to have something different occasionally.

The food for the barbecue was varied and delicious: Plenty supply of meat (pork chops, chicken drumsticks and wings, and pork sausages), sticky rice sausages, Chinese style black pudding (sticky rice dipped in pig blood…yumi!), Manchurian wildrice (Chia Bai Shun), sweet corns, Chitaki Mushrooms, and clams All these came at the price of merely NT$ 50 and it was all you can eat type of buffet! Tsao You-ling, a freshman of the Department of Multicultural and Linguistic Studies believed that it was indeed a fantastic bargain. Great food aside, this barbecue served as a wonderful “ice-breaker” (despite the heat!) for people to get to know one another better.

At the end of barbecue, with fire half burnt, plates empty, bellies full, everyone lit up a gold sparkler, sitting in the dark talking about sweet memories of past moon festival celebrations and other childhood stories. Fire of the sparklers lit up everyone’s face as well as their heart. (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )