NesianFest

The First Annual DFW Nesian Fest took place on 22-23 May 2021 at the Asia Time Square in Grand Prairie, Texas. It’s presented through a partnership of the Asia Times Square and Gu’d Life ENT with a mission “to unify through diversity” by raising cultural awareness, educating on various cultural backgrounds, preserve traditions, and supporting students and small businesses. Additional information can be found at their website.

From Miayah:

This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a festival dedicated to the island cultures that exist in the Pacific, and was excited to go to the event. In my family, there was some reservation about the level of representation each of the cultures would have, I think that was a valid concern. While there aren’t a lot of full on Asian cultural centers in Texas, Asia Times Square is a fairly large venue with a grocer, food court, various shops (clothing, tech, etc), and an executive business center. There is a lovely outdoor pavillion where most of the entertainment was initially to be held. Unfortunately, the mercurial nature of Texas weather has given us the rainiest year in recent memory. This forced the vendors indoors, and made for a crowded festival.

In my opinion, there was a pretty solid skew of representation of the Nesian community. It was really nice to see things I’m familiar with represented and celebrated. It was a small festival, and I hope to see it grow in the coming years. As a first venture out into public, it was very, very crowded, though quite enjoyable. Frankly, there were so many things to see and smell (the food was wonderful) that pictures absolutely didn’t make the list of things to do. We did take some pictures of the things we purchased afterwards though.

I’m excited to see this festival grow, and am keeping an eye out to see when it will happen next year. 🖤

From Becky:

This last Saturday Miayah, her boyfriend, and I drove up to Dallas and attended NesianFest. It was the grand opening of the Asia Times Square in Grand Prairie, TX and a celebration of Asian culture. The event was recommended to us by one of Miayah’s aunties back in early April and sounded like a blast. After sorting out how our vaccine schedules would work, we discovered that the festival would be days after we hit 2 weeks post second vaccine. It was perfect! The fact that we could make our first real outing in over a year happen immediately after we were fully vaccinated was very very exciting.

The drive up was less pleasant than we’d hoped. It rained the whole 3 ½ hours; we checked the weather radar online about halfway to Grand Prairie and found that we were basically chasing the storm. It made for a slow and long trip with very low visibility. I drove up and we survived with frequent stops. We arrived around 5:20p which ended up being good timing because the performances started at 6p. We were actually going to get there sooner but in the first 20 minutes of the drive Miayah’s contact ripped so we had to turn around. It was fortuitous in a way, much better than the contact ripping 3 hours in and no way to get a replacement.

We stopped at Buc-ee’s on the way up and wandered around as you do when you visit the best gas station in the country. Miayah purchased a cute tumbler and we got plenty of snacks. I ended up with 3 different kinds of kolaches and a cream cheese danish. They were delicious and quite lovely as I had not eaten breakfast before we left. If you haven’t been to Buc-ee’s before I highly recommend that you go at least once in your life. It’s a small chain of gas stations that are primarily in Texas but their facilities are HUGE. One gas station is the size of a Walmart. There are 50+ gas pumps. They have clothes, dishes, kitchen accessories, candles, soaps, keychains, their own line of candies, jerky, fudge, marinated meats, and cheesecake. Their barbeque station is incredible. They have everything under the sun in this one gas station and it’s amazing. Our god kids think of Buc-ee’s as a destination rather than a waypoint. 

When we arrived at the venue we rushed inside as it was still raining and were quickly confronted with quite the crowd. Our theory is that the performances and speeches were supposed to have been done outside but with the rain everything was forced to be inside. The stage was set up in such a way that it nearly blocked the entrance. Now keep in mind, Asia Times Square is essentially an indoor mall. They have shops lining both sides of a main thoroughfare and the performance area was set up in the middle of the lane! It was more crowded than we’d expected and the air was hazy and smelled delicious. We decided to wander through the crowd away from the main spectacle to see everything the venue offered.

As we pushed through the crowd we passed many vendors, all offering wonderful things from different places in the Eastern hemisphere. There was boba, Chamorro treats, pickled foods, trinkets of all sorts, t-shirts proclaiming nations of origin. There was a covered patio area which was filled with food vendors, all cooking street foods - delicious and very portable. The aroma of the food was intoxicating; everywhere you walked in this indoor mall was permeated with this mouth watering scent. After looking at all the food we decided to push back up to the performance area as it was nearly 6p.

We hustled over to the back of the room where all the chairs were set up, the furthest back point from the stage, eagerly awaiting the start of the show. What we didn’t realize in picking our spot is that the band that was composed completely of cymbals and one drum was directly in front of us. We had the advantage of seeing all the dancers get ready; they donned traditional 2 man  Chinese dragon costumes. Once they were in place, the drum started and the cymbals crashed in. It was mind blowingly loud and fantastic. The music rattled my bones and made thought impossible; all I could do was stand there and experience the phenomenal sound washing over us. It was amazing!

After the dancing was completed we decided to explore the rest of the venue. It turned out that there was a whole half of a mall that we didn’t see initially past the outdoor patio. There was a grocery store where we picked up some teacups and little treats. After the grocery store we decided it was time to eat as all we’d had up to this point were the snacks from Buc-ee’s. We chose a place called “The Pearl Restaurant and Lounge” where they had dim sum. I’d never had dim sum before so I was very excited to try things. We had shark fin dumplings, quail egg dumplings, soup dumplings, deep fried spring rolls, gyoza, and bbq pork dumplings. It was great and super delicious. After finishing this first order we were still hungry and debated for a minute about what to do next; we could order more dumplings or…… go eat street food!

The street food smelled too good to resist so we paid up at The Pearl and headed to the patio. We picked up Lao sausage, satay on a stick, beef on a stick, and fresh papaya salad. I also got some candied pecans, pecan tarts, and truffles from the Chamorro table. Everything was delicious and we were soon stuffed to the gills. At this point it was about 8:30p and we were completely full and overstimulated and very tired. It’s funny, staying in the house all the time for over a year makes your stamina for social situations very weak. We had so much fun yet being in that crowd with all the noise and the heat of bodies pressed together became overwhelming pretty quickly. We headed back home.

It didn’t rain on the way back so we had a very smooth, very short drive. We did stop at Buc-ee’s again and I picked up a matching tumbler to Miayah’s; hers is teal and mine is pink. We came home to dogs that were very happy to see us. Overall I’m glad we took this day trip. It was a festive and bright way to welcome back some normalcy in our lives. If Asia Times Square hosts another NesianFest next year I think it would be great to go back.