Asia Society Internship Blog

This week was an exciting and eventful one! We had the full squad again and the three of us headed to the office to get the assignment of the day. Amal Hasan, the Performing Arts and Culture Programs Manager, gave us the project that we would be doing for the weeks leading up to the night market. Once again, I'm eagerly anticipating this annual event since I missed it a year ago. Anyways, our project was to design wooden signs displaying directions such as "Otaku Valley" and "Beer Garden" for the event. We wrote out the block letters and decorated them with LED lights to really make them pop out for the evening. After we completed a sign, the Asia Society staff showed us a "surprise." The "surprise" was that they were planning on converting the disability entryway into the location for the upcoming "Train to Asia" exhibit that we spent a great deal of time researching for last year. Although official plans haven't been made yet ...

I went alone this week since my fellow interns were occupied due to scheduling conflicts. But all the more fun! I met with Ashley Gelato, the University of Houston intern that I met last week at the luncheon. Our assignment for the day was to revise the facts about several Asian countries for one of the upcoming exhibitions. Basically, these facts would be featured in interactive stations in an exhibit, and each button would have information about a part of the country's culture. For example, I wrote a fact on how BTS added 5 billion dollars last year to South Korea's economy, which is almost half of the country's total. The goal was to make them concisely within a specific word count, as well as make them more engaging for younger audiences.  We worked on this assignment for the entirety of the afternoon, and after Gelato went home I finished up the remaining bits because of the pressing deadline. Overall I think we did a good job refining the facts for the exhibit, and I ...

We started off this week by being briefed on the upcoming events by our Education & Outreach coordinator. Phuong told us that the crown jewel of Asia Society's public events, the Night Market, would be happening again in a few months. We were invited to volunteer and attend the event afterward. Personally, this was one of the biggest events I was looking forward to this year. When Everest and I began our internships last year, Night Market had already happened a week prior. It was a shame that we missed this festive occasion but I'm excited to be able to participate this year! After the briefing, we had the task of folding pamphlets for the next day's event: The Intern lunch. Little did we know that we would be handed our own pamphlets due to the attendance invitation by our coordinators. After folding the papers, we were assigned to give feedback on the Asian comic website prototype ahead of its public release. This is the culmination of all the feedback we have given ...