The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) held its first-ever Karaoke Competition on Feb. 10 in the Hughes Trigg Student Center. The competition brought out several singers who proceeded to belt out a myriad of songs to the delight of the crowd. Songs included ones from Fall Out Boy, Journey and Mariah Carey.
“This event was different from most VSA programs, intentionally so,” VSA President Christy Vutam said. “Our goal this year has been to make the SMU community aware of the Vietnamese Student Association. This event was planned solely as a socially fun event, and I think it worked.”
The competition is a departure from VSA’s typical cultural-concentrated programming. VSA is better known for the multitude of Vietnamese and Asian programs it puts on throughout the year. Their events are aimed at bringing the Asian culture to the SMU campus through food, concerts and presentations.
“We decided this semester to make each of our meetings a special event where we actually did something and have fun instead of just sitting around talking about upcoming events and such,” VSA Secretary Jacqueline Nguyen said.
Contestants paid a three dollar entry fee and were provided with Vietnamese snacks and drinks. All participants received a coupon for boba tea, a monthly fundraiser for VSA. As an incentive to participate and as a grand prize, VSA offered an iPod shuffle to the best performer who was picked by the audience.
“We’re going to use the money to plan future events, but more specifically, a movie night during CelebrAsian, the Asian awareness month in April,” Nguyen said.
The event brought in numerous spectators that are not regular members of VSA. Students involved in several other minority organizations came out to support the fundraiser, including the Indian Student Association, the East Asian Student Association and several members of the Multicultural Greek Council.
“This event really brought out the Asian in me,” Kee Lee, president of the Multicultural Greek Council, said.
The winner of the event was Laura Tudor, a sophomore music education major. Though she is not a regular member of VSA, she heard about the event through the group’s continuous advertising and decided to give it a shot. Tudor won singing the song “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson.
“I picked Kelly Clarkson because she’s my American Idol,” Tudor said. “I’m really stoked about winning this iPod.”
VSA’s future events include their boba tea sale – the next one being on Feb. 18 on the West Bridge, starting at 7:30 a.m. The next new event will take place on Feb. 24 at the service house, where the VSA executive officers will teach their general members to cook a traditional Vietnamese dish.
