Many international students experienced their first Thanksgiving Monday evening at the OU Cousins Thanksgiving dinner in the Oklahoma Memorial Union’s food court.

The three-course feast included traditional Thanksgiving foods like turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie.

OU Cousins has hosted the event for more than five years as a way to introduce international students to American culture, said Quy Nguyen, OU Cousins staff adviser and assistant director of Student Life.

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays with which everyone can identify, Nguyen said. Even though Thanksgiving is an American holiday, being thankful is something universal that everyone can come together and celebrate, he said.

Shota Nagahisa, an economics and business sophomore from Japan, said that Japan has a holiday similar to Thanksgiving in May, but it is not a feast day like the American Thanksgiving.

“The food was very, very delicious,” Nagahisa said.

Nagahisa said this was his first traditional Thanksgiving feast. Although the experience and food were different, he still enjoyed it, citing the turkey as his favorite part.

Nagahisa attended the dinner with his OU cousin, computer science senior Eric Guinn.

Guinn said he studied abroad in Japan last year for the summer, fall and spring. He met Nagahisa at the OU Cousins pumpkin-carving event, and signed up to be his cousin because of their common interest in Japan.

Although Guinn invited Nagahisa to share the Thanksgiving holiday break with him, Nagahisa said he is going to go to Las Vegas and maybe the Grand Canyon with other international students.

“It’s not the quite the traditional Thanksgiving, but it sounds fun,” Guinn said.

Verena Rath, a business and administration graduate student from Austria, also celebrated her first Thanksgiving.

Austria has a holiday similar to Thanksgiving at the end of October, Rath said.

She said the food is very different, and she misses the bread from home the most. American bread is much sweeter and softer, she said.

Rath is a vegetarian, so she had spaghetti and broccoli instead of the usual turkey.

“It is not quite a real Thanksgiving,” Rath said.

For the break, she is planning to visit New York City with some friends, Rath said.

“I want to see everything while I am [in the United States],” Rath said.

Other than the Thanksgiving meal, attendees also made turkeys out of apples, toothpicks and gumdrops. At the end of the dinner, there was a contest to see which group made the best turkey.

Additionally, students created hand turkeys and decorated them with the flags of their nations to give to President David Boren, Nguyen said. The turkeys are in honor of Boren’s 15th anniversary as OU president.

The Thanksgiving dinner is one of OU Cousins’ most popular events, said Brooke Allen, Spanish and French sophomore and member of the OU Cousins advisory board.

Because of the high demand, they have actually had to create a sign-up sheet to limit the event to the first 100 people, Allen said.

Boren and his wife, Molly Shi, created OU Cousins in 1996 to encourage friendship and unity between American and international students, according to the group’s Web site.