MONROE - Festival visitors claimed the Chinese table had the best artwork, but it was the booth for Liberia that won for food.

Mary Moser of Monroe was skeptical of the tuna-pepper-onion combo, but, raising her eyebrows with the first taste, said she was pleasantly surprised. “I thought it wouldn’t be very good, but it was very tasty,” she said, recommending it to another.

The Union Baptist Association hosted its second annual international festival on Saturday. Local participants represented China, Japan, India, Liberia and Mexico; others were on hand with information about international missions.

Some Americans are “oblivious to what’s going on in the world around us,” Christine Buttrell said, and should keep an open mind when experiencing another culture.

Buttrell, a nursing major at South Piedmont Community College, took an intercultural communications class last year. She didn’t hear about last year’s festival in time, but attended this one with a friend who is now enrolled in the same class.

Peeking over the Japanese table, second-grade Benton Heights student Joceline Abarca took a break from helping her parents prepare Mexican food. Pointing to a pair of wooden shoes, or geta, she asked the attendant, “Did you make these?”

Nariko Thompson of Weddington said the shoes, a mix between flip-flops and clogs, are elavated to keep feet dry in wet summer months. Husband Tom Thompson added that there are Japanese socks made with two separate openings for toes to accommodate the shoes.

Meanwhile, Abarca’s cousin Abigail Ramos, a first-grader at Rock Rest Elementary, inched closer to the Chinese booth to glance at a wooden vase with Chinese characters painted on the side. Abarca said she hadn’t yet tasted the food at that booth — “only the restaurant kind.”

Two booths down, Robert Talluri of Mint Hill manned a table set with several paper cups full of colorful food samples. Talluri moved from India to New Jersey in 1989, then to North Carolina in 1996 for warmer weather. Although there isn’t as much Indian culture in the area, he said, there are still opportunities to eat the food and mingle with other Indians. Some of his family lives here, too.

When asked which food is his favorite, he said the less spicy, the better.

Lisa Hargette said the festival is “a great way just to see who’s here and learn about their culture.” Hargette’s church, Shiloh Baptist, has a Hmong fellowship, she said, which offers some of the same opportunities.

Just a few feet away, Tanya King demonstrated the firm Liberian handshake; most Liberians aren’t the hugging type, she said. Other booth attendants strolled over to neighboring booths in between visitors.

Moser attended the event for “something interesting to see,” she said, and learned a lot about other cultures in the county. Before the festival, she said she had no idea some Liberians have no electricity or running water.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said of next year’s festival.