Over the long weekend, students will have the opportunity to experience a festive celebration from a foreign culture.
The Iranian Student Society will host a Yalda Night celebration in the Baker Ballroom on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $8 per person and will be available for purchase on the first floor of Baker Center from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The event will be open to the public and will include dining, fellowship and activities such as a poetry reading.
Hamed Bateni, a graduate student studying chemical engineering, is the president of the Iranian Student Society and is organizing this year’s celebration.
“Yalda Night is one of the ancient festivals that survived the extinction of the sub-ancient festival in that area in the Middle East,” he said. “It is the celebration of the longest night of the year. People, family and friends get together to have some food, drink (and) dinner.”
Bateni said the event will contribute to the culture of diversity he believes is already vibrant on campus.
“OU is really diverse,” he said. “You can see every day that there are different events from different cultures. We think sharing it with other students at OU is really valuable, like sharing culture with other students.”
According to the event’s Facebook page, Yalda Night is “the celebration of the longest night of the year and triumph of light over darkness.” The ISS has been hosting the event for about three years.
Saba Navabzadeh Esmaeely, a graduate student studying chemical engineering, is another member of the ISS and said she is excited for the annual celebration.
“I am mostly looking forward to (seeing) how our culture is presented, the way that we celebrate different occasions in our culture,” she said. “It is a symbolic version of the longest night of the year. We read poetry. We try to be, as much as we can, with loved ones. It is very symbolic to me, and I cherish it a lot.”
Bateni said that non-Iranian students can learn more about their culture by attending the Yalda Night celebration.
“We are learning from this culture, so we can share some of our culture with people here, and we can maybe clarify where we are from, who we are, because in the media you can hear lots of things about the Middle East, especially Iran, because of governmental issues," Bateni said. "It has always been kind of a question for people who Iranians really are, so we are trying to answer that question with different events and show the real face of Iranians in the OU community.”
