One of our UW–Stout students, Ziyi Fu (Hachi) recently visited the Minnesota State Fair. Minneapolis is an hour and a half's drive from UW–Stout and the grounds of the established Minnesota State Fair are just off the Highway 94. Created as a way to encourage agriculture and farming in the region in 1855, the Fair is today a 12-day event that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every day.
Here Ziyi Fu tells us about her experience.
“The most memorable part for me was the parade happening though the main street, it was fun and super cheerful. Different groups wore all kinds of clothes, some of them were riding horses like the cavalry and some dressed in costumes and stood on parade floats – very spectacular! Those around us joined the floats in the parade in singing "M!-I!-N!-N!-E!-S!-O!-T!-A!" Super loud! People stopped and watched. It felt the same as when people stop to watch the parades at Disney World. It was almost like ‘How could you not watch?’ The singing, big floats, costumes and energy are really entertaining.
One of my favorite parts of the whole day was the food. We tried loaded tots and veggie fries. For activities we basically wandered around, went to see anything that looked new to us. We visited the merchandise mart, haunted house, places that presented and sold natural Christmas trees, a fun fair including a program called "Thunderbird" and went on the gondola-style skyride. We accidentally walked into a farmer labor party activity, and we took photos with the squad car.
I went with a group of my close friends; we were all from China. We didn’t really know each other at the start of the day but, sharing a whole day exploring new things bonded us together. We had a scary moment where half of our tickets went missing for the skyride because they got wet. We didn’t realize this until we were too close to the front of the line and didn’t have enough time before we had to leave to go back and buy more tickets. So, once we got to the front, we explained what happened and the friendly worker let us on the ride. From that I now have a better understanding of Midwest hospitality. I know that if I was alone in that situation I would have just gotten out of line and missed out on the ride, but since I had friends with me, I felt brave.
If I could relive any moment, I would say when the guy next to me sang proudly and loudly "M!-I!-N!-N!-E!-S!-O!-T!-A!" with the parade. I loved it.” I wouldn’t change much about the day but if I had to pick something it would have been to go and try to talk to some of the locals at the fair. It would have been cool to hear from them about what they like about the fair and maybe make new connections.”
