Representatives from Sias University's international student body attended an event for the Laba Festival on January 13. The event was sponsored by the Foreign & Overseas Affairs Office of the Zhengzhou Municipal People's Government and the Zhengzhou Newspaper Industry Group. It was also sponsored by the Henan Provincial Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and was hosted by the Zhengzhou Evening News Agency.

At the event, students from Sias were interviewed by various news agencies. Jasmin Maharajan, from Nepal, was interviewed by Zhengzhou People's Radio and spoke of her experiences in Zhengzhou and what she had learned about Chinese culture from living in Henan. Khammalee Soukthavong, from Laos, and Uuganbayar Khurelto, from Mongolia, were interviewed by China News Service that it was their first winter vacation spent in China, and they were looking forward to traveling to other cities in China and learning more about Chinese culture.

The goal of the event was to create a platform for the interaction of international students living and studying in Zhengzhou, to increase the exchange between cultures from around the world, and to give students a deeper understanding of the culture of the Central Plains, as well as China.