New Years is a time of fresh beginnings, hope, and celebrations with family and friends. However, Chinese students studying abroad find themselves thousands of miles from home and missing the most important holiday in their culture, the Lunar New Year, in which people from all over China return to their hometowns for a week-long celebration. It is estimated that more than 2 billion people will travel during this period annually, known as Chongqing-Chunyun.
UPP students enjoyed a taste of home with students from the Global Living and Learning Village at NC State by celebrating Lunar New Years through a variety of activities, food, and fun. This was a wonderful opportunity for UPP students to share meaningful traditions while making new friends.
The event started with delicious food from a local Chinese restaurant followed by a short presentation on New Year’s traditions from around the world. Afterward, the students had the opportunity to talk about their own New Year’s customs and traditions in small groups. The Chinese students shared the symbolism of the different zodiac animals, explaining that this was the year of the rabbit symbolizing hope and peace.
The UPP and Global Village students were then invited to rotate among various stations where they could participate in various activities and games representing different aspects of Chinese culture. For our students, this was a perfect opportunity to interact with new people and potentially spark new friendships. The dumpling-making station was probably the most popular of all, where UPP students instructed their peers on the correct way of preparing homemade pork dumplings. Many American students were surprised at how easy their Chinese friends made it look!
Another station had students practice the art of calligraphy. UPP students taught their peers this ancient art by demonstrating some basic characters and writing their names for them in Chinese. Ruhua Liu, a UPP student participating in the festivities commented, “I loved the Chinese calligraphy! It represented Chinese culture and history.”
The activity that produced the most laughter was the chopsticks station where students received points for picking up a variety of objects (candy, dried beans etc) within a given amount of time. Different strategies were in effect as some students chose to focus on obtaining a large amount of the larger items while the more ambitious chose to tackle the higher pay-off with smaller items.
