Test your trivial prowess at the 20th annual National Asian American Trivia Championships
SAN FRANCISCO — There is nothing like watching a trivia contest, spewing out the answers and smugly exclaiming, “I know that.”
Now’s your opportunity to prove it at the Bay Area’s longest-running Asian trivia event.
The 20th annual National Asian American Trivia Championships will be held on Saturday, March 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, located at 1840 Sutter St. It is a fund-raiser for Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach’s multilingual legal services, education and advocacy for API seniors, youth, women and immigrants.
Teams of up to 12 contestants will tackle carefully researched questions spanning culture, history, science, music, sports and more — with a distinctive Asian Pacific American emphasis.
“The event is a great way to spend time with friends, to team build, to see how you match up with other teams and, of course, to help a great organization,” said event founder Wilfred Lim, a former board member of API Legal Outreach, who created the contest two decades ago after attending a similar trivia fund-raiser event at a Jewish community center.
“Jeopardy was a very popular show then, and, I thought, everyone loves to answer the questions while watching TV, so why not create a fund-raiser where everyone will get a real chance to compete and at the same time contribute money to a good cause,” Lim recalls.
Lim said the best teams are composed of people who have different job backgrounds and who are varied in age. No team has ever received a perfect score; the best teams correctly answer about 80 percent of the questions.
“When you’re playing, it gets intense and competitive,” said Christine Hoang, a former player and presently a member of the Questions Committee. “Instead of whispering the answers, people tend to scribble down their guess for the team to agree. Players then nod or shake their heads vigorously, so that other teams can not overhear their answers.”
For more information: apilegaloutreach.org.