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New UC San Diego club looks to promote Chinese culture and bring people together

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New UC San Diego club looks to promote Chinese culture and bring people together


A new club at UC San Diego in La Jolla is rooted in Chinese art, language and food, but its primary focus is on bridging the gaps among different cultures.

When second-year UCSD student Lydia Xie moved from Singapore to San Diego, she began to notice a general lack of understanding about Chinese culture, she said. Her interest grew as she read a social media thread of UCSD students discussing international students’ tendency to socialize with people from the same background.

Looking to foster cross-cultural sharing and understanding, Xie decided to form a new campus club, Lotus Bridge @ UC San Diego.

“We do have some Chinese student organizations on campus, but based on my understanding, they’re usually focused on having Chinese international students in those groups,” Xie said.

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“[There’s] nothing wrong with that,” she added. “I think that is great for them to be finding community here in a foreign country. But for me … I would love to have a platform where we can share Chinese culture to other people who might not be as familiar with it.”

Lotus Bridge aims to unite diverse cultures, hold activities such as dessert-making and foster teamwork and leadership, Xie said. The group registered as a student organization in September, followed by a promotional push on social media starting Jan. 7 and its first general meeting Jan. 22.

Nearly 20 students joined in Lotus Bridge’s first general meeting Jan. 22. (Chloe Zhang)

Xie is the group’s founder and president. Other founding members are UCSD students Helena Ren, Qianqian Yang, Anny Ma and Chloe Zhang.

Yang, a fourth-year visual arts student, said she got acquainted with the group through a social media post.

“It kind of just popped up,” she recalled. “I never saw this before on campus, so I really wanted to join.”

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Ma said the club offered a meaningful way of getting connected with the university in her freshman year as a sociology student.

Ahead of its first meeting, the club set up a table by the university’s Geisel Library to quiz fellow students on Chinese culture, such as when the Mid-Autumn Festival takes place (this year it’s Sept. 25) and how many tones are in the Mandarin language (four).

People who registered for the meeting were asked to fill out a form, with one of the prompts asking them about their level of familiarity with Chinese culture. On a scale of 1-10, most respondents scored themselves between three and seven, Xie said.

At the event, guests baked Chinese peach blossom pastries at Marshall College’s Umoja Community Kitchen. The pastries are a popular dish year-round, including during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Chinese peach blossom pastries enter the oven at Lotus Bridge's first general meeting. (Qianqian Yang)
Chinese peach blossom pastries enter the oven at Lotus Bridge’s first general meeting. (Qianqian Yang)

“[By] learning to make traditional pastries, we can understand the festival and the folk tales behind them,” Ma said. “We hope through baking, we can promote cross-cultural communication and enable people from different backgrounds to experience Chinese culture.”

Xie said she hopes the introductory event and others to follow will create unity among UCSD students.

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“I think success for this club is just about boosting people’s understanding of Chinese culture,” she said. “I really want to build a community where everybody can be more empathetic and more understanding of people from different backgrounds.”

According to the Center for Student Involvement, UCSD is home to 692 student organizations for the 2025-26 academic year. See a full list at studentorg.ucsd.edu.

To learn more about Lotus Bridge @ UC San Diego, visit @lotusbridgeatucsandiego on Instagram. ♦



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San Diego, CA

SDPD investigating suspicious death

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SDPD investigating suspicious death


UNIVERSITY CITY (KGTV) — San Diego police are investigating the death of an 81-year-old woman who was found unresponsive in her apartment in the 6300 block of Genesee Avenue.

Officers and San Diego Fire-Rescue personnel responded to a 9-1-1 call at about 11:56 p.m. on March 6.

First responders found the woman in her bedroom, unresponsive and “positioned awkwardly on a bed.” Despite immediate life-saving efforts, she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Detectives from the San Diego Police Department’s Homicide Unit were called to the scene due to “unusual circumstances,” police said. The cause and manner of death remain undetermined.

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Investigators are working with the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine what happened.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

This story has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.





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San Diego, CA

One killed in fiery three-vehicle crash on 805 freeway in San Diego

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One killed in fiery three-vehicle crash on 805 freeway in San Diego


A person was killed Sunday in a fiery three-vehicle crash on the Jacob Dekema (805) Freeway in San Diego, authorities said.

The crash occurred at 4:22 a.m. Sunday on the northbound freeway south of Miramar Road, the California Highway Patrol reported.

At least one vehicle struck the center divider and caught fire, the CHP said.

The numbers one through five lanes of the northbound freeway were closed at 6:01 a.m. for an unknown duration.

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No further information was immediately available.



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San Diego, CA

Veterans weigh in on U.S. involvement in Iran

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Veterans weigh in on U.S. involvement in Iran


“It seems pointless. They change the reason for aggression against Iran daily,” Army Veteran, Forest Gray said.

Gray was among dozens of protestors who gathered at Memorial Community Park in Logan Heights Saturday calling for an end to the war in Iran.

Seeing the conflict play out is personal for him. Gray served eight years in the front lines in the Middle East.

“I fought in Iraq and you know, everyone wears the uniform, and gets deployed, we kind of expect and accept that we have to put our lives on the line, but ideally it should be a sense for a greater good. I don’t see what greater good there is here,” Gray said.

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Gray is not alone.

Jonathan Chavez who served in the U.S. Marine Corps at Miramar Base in San Diego also disagrees with the U.S. involvement in Iran.

“No one wants these wars, no one has asked for these wars. Public opinion in this country is also very clear, the vast majority of Americans do not support these conflicts,” Chavez said.

Some Iranian Americans took a different stance last week, as hundreds took the streets of Clairemont.

“It was a feeling of euphoria knowing that my people are free, knowing that a dictator that has ruled Iran with iron fists for well over 37 years, has been killed, has been pushed out of the power and we can have a democratic Iran,” Bobby Shah told NBC 7.

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Despite the sentiment, Saturday’s protest was hosted by an organization opposed to war in the Middle East.

They used signs and chants to make their stance clear: Stop the War in Iran.

Watching from a distance we found Marine Corps Veteran Chris Mondestin.

Even though he was not part of the protest, he also opposes the war saying the conflict should stay between Iran and Israel and the U.S. should stay out of it.

“It’s real scary. It’s real scary because I know there’s a lot of people that are truly against this war, but they don’t have much of a voice. That’s why I was kind of happy to see this, because we do have a voice. We just got to speak loud,” Mondestin said.

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He also worries about the effects the war could have on the country’s safety, economy, and relationship with countries in the Middle East.

According to Iranian Diaspora Dashboard from UCLA’s Center of Near Eastern Studies, about 600,000 Iranians live in the U.S. and about half of them are in California.



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