Chinese American Association of Minnesota holds 44th annual banquet and meeting

By Greg Hugh, Staff Writer

It's never easy to mix business with pleasure, but the Chinese American Association of Minnesota (CAAM) made a valiant effort to do so when it recently held its 44th annual banquet and meeting at Peking Garden in St. Paul, MN.

The program for the evening began with the registration/social hour followed by the business meeting that included a report on CAAM's 2011 activities and achievements, financial report, CAAM Chinese Dance Theater report/2012 production and a report from the CAAM Chinese Language School.

Following these reports was the presentation of the Stanley Chong Scholarships that were presented to Szumei Leow and Anne Liao.

The next item on the agenda was a very informative presentation by Dr. Li Ning on Lei Yixin the Master Sculptor of Martin King Memorial which she has written and published in a book printed in Mandarin.

Immediately following this presentation, dinner service began that included 10 courses that was accompanied with a variety of entertainment that included the following performances: Lauren Moy playing the Guzheng; Jonathan and Jeremy Yeung playing a violin duet; Mina Yuan, a CAAM-CLS student presenting her winning speech; a performance by CAAM-CDT dancers, Michelle Zhang, Tracy Geng, Kimberly Mao and Claire Rasmussen; Ha siblings, Libau and Lirong with David on guitar singing several popular songs; Claire Rasmussen, Janna Fitzgerald performing a dance; Liangshend Cheng, Jenny Ji and Boling Zheng, singers from the Minhua Chorus, accompanied on the guitar by David Su and James Feng and followed by Liangsheng Cheng performing a solo.

The evening concluded with a drawing for door prizes donated by various donors.