KAHPSA to Host a New Year Celebration
The Korean American Health Professional Student Association (KAHPSA) will hold a Korean New Year Celebration on Wednesday, February 5. The event will be held at 5:30 p.m. (Nursing Building, third floor, mezzanine) and everyone is welcome.
The event is intended to highlight the diversity, flexibility and caring in Korean culture and to celebrate Korean New Year.
Students will be treated to pat-bing-su, Korean shaved ice, which originated in a 15th-century battle between Korea and China. The battle took place in the summer, and all the soldiers were exhausted from fighting in the intense heat and humidity.
A Korean general ordered the Korean housewives to bring ice from the mountains and mix it with honey and milk and serve it to the Korean soldiers to refresh them. This is symbolic of Korea's culture of caring.
Pat-bing-su also recalls other Korean cultural characteristics: flexibility and diversity. This is represented in one of the dish’s main ingredients, red beans, which has its origins in Japanese red bean porridge.
Red beans were only incorporated as a main ingredient of pat-bing-su during World War II, when Korea was colonized by Japan. This shows how Korean culture is accepting of foreign culture and how open Koreans are to the diversity of other cultures.
