The St. Edward’s Asian Student Association (ASA) hosted an afternoon of festivities to celebrate the Lunar New Year last Friday. The student and faculty organizers put together traditional performances, served popular Asian snacks, food and drinks, and included interactive games for all attendees to participate in, all of which commemorated the holiday.

Lunar New Year is a traditional Chinese celebration that is celebrated throughout many countries and cultures, marking the first new moon of the Lunar calendar. Each new year is represented by a rotation of twelve Chinese zodiac animals, this year’s animal being a snake. The Lunar New Year festivities began on Jan. 29 and came to an end on Feb. 8., which sparked two weeks of celebrations and traditions.

“Lunar New Year is not based on the American calendar or the Gregorian calendar, but is based on the Lunar calendar,” ASA officer Tu-Anh Le said. “It runs a little bit behind how America runs a calendar, and this year it lands on the Year of the Snake.”

The festivities took place at Ragsdale Lawn on Feb. 7 from noon to 2 p.m. As students got checked into the event, they were handed red wristbands that allowed them to choose from popular Asian food and drink items from a snack table. Options included mandarin oranges, milk tea from popular chain Gong Cha and onigiri (Japanese rice balls). The onigiri, from local Japanese import store Asahi Imports, had filling flavors ranging from tuna and mayo to vegetarian options such as takana (pickled Japanese mustard greens).

“For onigiri, we’ve actually worked with Asahi Imports, who have been really great caterers and vendors to us, and we chose them because it’s easy, inclusive and there’s a lot of different dietary ways to accommodate,” ASA advisor Minh-Thi Nguyen said. “And then the boba is a classic, so we chose Gong Cha because it’s a more known chain and maybe it could bring more people in.”

Many popular traditions were observed at the event, such as attendees wearing red for luck, students writing and displaying their hopes and wishes for the new year and dancers being invited to perform the traditional lion dance as a main form of entertainment. The lion dance is a lively, interactive Chinese performance that serves the purpose of bringing good spirits into the new year. 

Students could engage in the performance by giving one of the masked performers a red gift envelope that they received at check-in. Five of these envelopes contained a two-dollar bill, which they could either keep or give to the performers during the dance for good luck.

“We learned last year that lion dance was gonna be a big hit, so we wanted to do it again,” Nguyen said. “We thought a lion dance would be perfect and lion dances are significant in Asian culture because it brings the good spirits into the area that you’re in.”

Along with the refreshments and the performance, students were also invited to partake in a game activity towards the end of the event. The organizers chose a game called Mingle, a Korean children’s game much like musical chairs. The game was recently popularized by the second season of Netflix’s Korean series, ‘Squid Game.’ Nguyen expressed how she and the organizers chose a more well-known game that would garner student interest. 

“‘Squid Game’ season two just came out very recently on Netflix, and we wanted to make it fun and exciting,” Nguyen said. “Last year we had a lot of games and we thought incorporating something that more people would know would be really helpful.”

Four students represented the guards of the game, while the other attendees played the game as featured in the show: They walked in a circle listening to the Mingle song and had to form a group with a specific number of people by the end of the song, or risk being eliminated. The two winners each received a Gongi set, another Korean children’s game played in the show.  

The Lunar New Year event had a great student turnout, counting over 120 students checked in to the event within the first 20 minutes. Both Le and Nguyen stated that, while Lunar New Year is a celebration in Asian cultures, any and all students were welcome to participate, learn about and appreciate the holiday and all of its traditional aspects.

“A big part of the Lunar New Year culture is to wish everyone good luck for the new year,” Le said. “It’s about eating good food, having fun and just sharing the culture with our St. Ed’s family.”