The Asian and Native American Center celebrated the beginning of the year of the rooster with the Lunar New Year Celebration in the Student Union Apollo Room from 11 a.m to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 26.
The Lunar New Year Celebration was a part of Chinese Immersion Day, starting at 8:30 a.m. and lasting until noon. Chinese Immersion Day included a variety of culture and language activities as well as lunch.
After lunch, the Lunar New Year Celebration went into full swing with a variety of performances and booths filled with activities. Students could participate in arts and crafts, where they could make paper lanterns, get balloon animals, get caricatures of themselves and their names written in Chinese calligraphy. There was also a fortune telling booth, face painting by Alpha Lambda Delta, a souvenir booth and a Vietnamese New Year flower market.
There were music and dance performances by students from the Dayton Regional STEM School, Richard Allen Schools and the Miami Valley School, as well as a Chinese magic show by Li Ying and Face Changing by Li Chengyu.
The magic show consisted a variety of sleight-of-hand tricks using paper, scarves, metal rings and lit candles. Face Changing is a performance art involving quick changing masks that switch faces as fast as a swipe of a hand or fan.
The Lunar New Year is based off of a different calendar according to Yan Shengfeng, graduate student in business.
“The Chinese Lunar New Year is different than the western New Year. In ancient China we used the farming calendar,” Shenfeng said. “The reason why we celebrate the Lunar New Year is because it is like Christmas day. It’s a symbol. You want to meet with your family and reconnect with each other. You will get together, talk about the year and what is happening in your life. Basically it is about being together and being happy.”
Senior history major Austin Fitch enjoyed experiencing the culture and seeing all the performances from younger students.
“It’s been really great,” Fitch said. “I really enjoyed watching all the students that came from different schools to perform. They are really talented. The activities are really cool too, because there are a lot of things from the Chinese culture that they have brought in and it’s really cool to check it out. It has been really neat to watch.”
