It is now the year of the tiger, and instead of celebrating Valentine’s Day, many Chinese students on campus honored the Chinese New Year, which took place on Sunday. The St. John’s Preparatory School hosted a celebration in honor of China’s most important holiday on Friday.
Over 300 people attended the event, which included food, games and a performance. The Prep. School and the China Cross Cultural Communication Club (5C) organized the gathering.
5C was founded this year by junior Hao Lei, who also serves as the club’s president. Friday was the first time Chinese students hosted a major event on campus, Lei said.
“Guests of all ages seemed to enjoy themselves, and I think it was a big success,” Lei said.
The event was open to all students, as well as Prep. School students and community members. Guests were given favors shipped directly from China.
“The main goal was to bring community together to celebrate the New Year,” Lei said. “We wanted to make the experience as authentic as possible.”
While it was difficult to try to re-create a New Year celebration here on campus, most Chinese students were pleased with the outcome.
“Celebrations are different depending on what part of China you are from, but I think the whole thing really helped my homesickness,” first-year Xinyu Chen said. “The only thing I think was missing from the night was some fireworks.”
5C and the Prep. School catered food from China One, which included dishes like pork kebabs, dumplings, steamed stuffed buns and kung-pao chicken.
Attendees practiced their chop- stick skills, learned to write calligraphy and played Chinese games. After the open-house portion of the evening, guests moved to the auditorium for the performance.
Dancers from St. Cloud State University took stage with a golden dragon dance.
“The dragon dance is something people do in China for the New Year,” junior Shiying He said. “It’s always so noisy in the streets because they do these dances late into the night before the New Year.”
Other professional dancers used props like fans and scarves and represented different Chinese minorities.
In addition to the hired performers, students from Madison Elementary School sang two songs in Chinese. Madison hosts a Chinese immersion language program for students in kindergarten through second grade, so students learn in both Mandarin and English.
Among other performers was senior Nick Palmquist who played guitar and sang a song by a famous Hong Kong pop star. Audience members waved their cell phones in time during his performance and ran up on stage to hand him a rose.
“This is a really popular song in China,” He said.
5C has goals to host similar events in the future and expand the club.
“We really want to create a cooperative Chinese community and increase communication,” Lei said.
The Chinese population on campus continues to increase each year.
“There are 97 students from mainland China on campus and five from Hong Kong,” Lei said.
Because of this, Lei and members of 5C hope to build bridges.
“I just think there is this invisible wall up between so many Chinese students and American students and I really want to find a way to break down that wall and let these students interact with each other,” Lei said.