VSA places first and third for MAYS

By Winnie Tran and John Nguyen

This year, Piedmont continues their four year winning streak, placing first for Olympia, which is a series of mini games similar to FANTASTICS. Piedmont Hills came in first, followed by Milpitas in second and Mt. Pleasant in third.

The VSA Mays (Mid-Autumn Youth Summit) festival occurred on Sat., Nov. 9 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Mount Pleasant High School. Entries were free and welcomed all parents and fellow students.

VSA Mays is coordinated by an organization called VietAYA (Vietnamese American Youth Association).

“Creating a dance is actually so much more stressful than it really seems but I’m really glad to have Christine Do as my partner. Honestly, everything we make comes through as pure creativity, there’s really nothing that inspires to incorporate a specific move,” states Cultural Chair Christina Wong.

The members have been working hard lately and have four routines planned: two fan dances, an umbrella dance and a ribbon dance. The festival is a competition style showcase where other VSA, VSU (Vietnamese Student Union) and CVC (Chinese Vietnamese Club) clubs from different schools perform to compete in many activities including singing, debates, skits, dances, games and speeches for first, second and third place.

“I think it’s important that if you are given the chance to represent who you are, you take pride in it. I decided to take part in MAYS because I can contribute to these amazing performances. I believe that we are all talented and MAYS gave us an opportunity to show it off,” says junior Kristine Nguyen.

The other schools that are competing with Piedmont are Silver Creek, Mount Pleasant, Milpitas, Andrew Hills, Santa Teresa, Overfelt, and Oak Grove. Last year, Santa Teresa High School, Silver Creek High School, and Milpitas High School scored the highest for dances. This year, Santa Teresa placed first for skit and second for dance and singing, and third in debate. Silver Creek placed first for debate, speeches, second for the scholarship award, and third for skit. Milpitas placed first for dance, second in Olympia, and third for the scholarship award and singing.

“It’s both bonding with your club and the anticipation of finding out the results after all the hard work you put in,” states Secretary Quynh Le.

During the event, Piedmont’s dance performance got moved from 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., giving them less time to prepare and practice, despite this setback, Piedmont Hills still placed third for dance group.