Students celebrate Lunar New Year on campus

Photo courtesy of Xhujun Gao ‘23
Gao drew a portrait of a parrot wearing a red traditional Chinese hat to celebrate the new year.

By Qingyun Shi ’23

Staff Writer

The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is a holiday celebrating the first day of the year as calculated by the traditional lunar calendar. This year, the Chinese New Year fell on Feb. 1, beginning the Year of the Tiger.

Jingyi Yuan ’23, a student from China, spoke about how she celebrated the new year.

“On January 30, we gathered in the evening and made wontons together,” Yuan said. “The process of preparing the stuffing and cooking the wontons showed unity and our appreciation for the upcoming New Year. My friends also brought homemade desserts to share with the whole group. We hope the appreciation of friendship and the Tiger spirit will bring us good luck in 2022.”

According to Baidu, since the Ming Dynasty, Chinese New Year festivities generally did not officially end until after the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, and in some places, the celebrations even lasted until the end of the entire first month. The Chinese New Year is mostly celebrated on the same day as the Korean New Year, the Vietnamese New Year and the Japanese New Year before the Meiji Restoration.

In China, there are many traditions to celebrate the new year. During the Chinese New Year, the elderly will give the younger generation red envelopes containing “New Year’s money.” The amount of money in the red envelope varies: in mainland China, it ranges from Ren Min Bi 100 to over RMB 10,000, depending on the different areas. In the evening, people usually gather together for a meal while watching the live CCTV Spring Festival Gala, a show broadcast on the eve of the Chinese New Year.

Wanqi Zhu ’23, a student from China involved with the Chinese Cultural Association, spoke about how she shared the day with friends.

“In the morning, I posted ‘fu’ on the blackboard in Blanchard, which represents best wishes in Chinese. Then I watched the Spring Festival Gala while waiting for lunch,” Wanqi said. “After that, I had my Zoom classes as usual. Once my class ended at 4:30 p.m., I started to prepare for dinner. I had hotpot with my friends and we celebrated the Chinese New Year together.”

In some cases, however, students may have class all day that interrupted celebrations. Cuiling Sun ’24, for example, had three classes on the festival day.

“This is my first Lunar New Year celebration outside of China,” Sun explained. “It’s really hard to feel the ‘Chinese New Year vibe.’ I did not realize the new year was coming until two days before it came.”

“I didn’t actually celebrate the Lunar New Year since I had classes for the whole day. Fortunately, the college dining hall provided a special meal for the Lunar New Year. I watched the Spring Festival Gala while eating,” Sun said.

“This is one of the things that I do every year, so I tried to keep doing it this year as well,” Sun explained. “This reminded me of the time that our family sat in the living room and watched the Gala together. Later, I FaceTimed with my parents and grandparents and said ‘Happy New Year’ to them.”

Xhujun Gao ’23 drew a picture to celebrate the new year during the interval between classes. “I drew pictures of my parrot with a traditional Chinese red hat on its head to create a cute and warm spring festival atmosphere,” Gao said.

The new year celebration can last from New Year’s Eve until the sixth day of the first month. In some years, New Year’s Eve does not fall on a day off, and the seventh day of the first month is used to compensate for the holiday, Baidu reported.

Due to the short time interval between the start of the semester and Chinese New Year, China Night, which is held by Mount Holyoke’s Chinese Cultural Association, will be held on February 18.

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