Celebrating Lunar New Year with Friends at UNCG

By XIN ZHAO, Intern at UPP@UNCG

Edited by SARAH M. T. MUNRO

Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is a very important festival for the Chinese. Chinese students usually celebrate together or go home to visit their family during the Chinese New Year. Our Chinese students may not have been able to be with their families this year, but they shared their great culture with their North Carolina community. There is nothing more exciting than showing off a culture you are very proud of!

On February 17th, UPP at UNCG students attended a Chinese New Year event organized by New Mind staff and interns. During the event, all of our students were very active and engaged with the planned activities. UPP students came to the event to teach Americans how to create and design a Chinese fan. The fans were made from plastic plates and wooden sticks. Both the American students and our New Mind students were able to be creative and draw whatever they liked on their plates — this resulted in some very beautiful fans.

We also encouraged our students to tell the American students about Chinese New Year culture. This included explaining the meaning behind Chinese red envelopes and giving them the opportunity to share their own empty envelopes with their fellow American friends. UPP students explained very specifically about how the Chinese give red envelopes as lucky money to their friends for the New Year. Our UPP students did a wonderful job leading the discussion!

During the event, UPP students not only showed Chinese New Year culture to Americans, but also made a lot of new American friends and practiced their English. In all, the UPP@UNCG Chinese New Year celebration was a very successful event.