Celebrating Merdeka with Go As ONE Carnival 7.0

In conjunction with Malaysia’s 66th Merdeka celebration this year, the Department of Student Affairs of Sungai Long Campus organised Go As ONE Carnival 7.0 at the Multipurpose Hall of UTAR Sungai Long Campus on 17 August 2023. 

There were lots of activities and competitions held, such as ChapTeh tournament, Merdeka singing contest, carnival bazaar, and mindfulness booths along with art and crafts activities, natural heritage native plants sketching and writing workshop, local film screening: Ice Kacang Puppy Love directed by Aniu, and meet and greet session with Aniu. The event also featured creative production sharing,  patriotic clip sharing, traditional game challenge, board games competition, Merdeka quizzes as well as entertaining performances by the 24 Festive Drums and the Chinese Language Society. 

The objective of the carnival was to promote unity and create awareness as well as connections among the UTAR community and the members of the public. Additionally, UTAR celebrated the “Batik” spirit this year with “Go As ONE Carnival 7.0”.

The carnival started with the ChapTeh tournament where participants were seen playing with a high level of motivation as the crowd gathered around to watch. Later, there was a film screening session for the film “Ice Kacang Puppy Love” directed by Aniu. During the greeting session, Aniu shared about his background; how he kickstarted his career, and how he overcame certain challenges in life. He also shared his knowledge of some musical instruments. Overall, he had an interactive sharing session with the audience.  The session ended with a Q&A session and a group photograph.

The participants of ChapTeh tournament

Aniu (right) during the interactive sharing session with audience

Aniu (fifth from right) with the audience

Later, there was an interesting performance by the 24 Festive Drums and a Diabolo performance by the Chinese Language Society. On top of that, there were also Merdeka quizzes to test the participants’ understanding of Malaysian history. Five winners with the highest scores were chosen and rewarded with prizes.

Performance by 24 Festive Drums

Diabolo performance by the Chinese Language Society

The last part of the Carnival was the Merdeka singing competition. All the contestants sang with great power and control; which gave the fellow judges a hard time to select the winners. In the end, three winners were selected for the Merdeka singing competition. The prize-giving ceremony marked the end of the Carnival. 

 

Contestants at the Merdeka singing competition

Winners of the Merdeka singing competition