From making Origami to watching the Lion Dance, Boston University students continued to ring in the year of the White Tiger with a campus Chinese lunar New Year celebration Tuesday.
About 200 students gathered at the George Sherman Union to commemorate the New Year though a range of activities traditionally found in the Chinese culture.
The party was a collaborative effort between the Asian Student Union, the Japanese Student Association, Lambda Phi Epsilon and Alpha Kappa Delta Phi.
“This our fourth year of doing it but this year what inspired us to collaborate was the success of the Moonlight Ball last semester,” said Asian Student Union President and School of Management senior Amy Yu.
Yu said celebrating the Chinese lunar New Year is important because it helps students understand different cultural traditions.
“People should know there’s a different new year that’s also celebrated which is extremely important to Asian cultures,” she said. “Like if you ask anyone in Asia right now, they’re celebrating like crazy and they have so much time off. It’s just like we have winter break for Christmas.”
Organizations set up stations in GSU Back Court with different cultural activities for students to participate in.
Alpha Kappa Delta Phi’s stall set up a game called Chop Chop, where people have to place marbles in cups as fast as possible using chopsticks.
On the other side of the room, people crowded at the JSA’s stall, which had Japanese wooden slingshot-like guns for students to play with.
“It’s fun and we can show the traditional aspect,” said College of Arts and Sciences junior and JSA member Jimmy Liu. “We made them from simple chopsticks.”
Aside from games, students could participate in an eating competition or a calligraphy workshop.
The party also had an array of different foods like the traditional Asian steamed bun called mantou, which was the food participants had to munch on for the eating contest.
Students said they thought the event was fun overall.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences freshman and attendee Nisha Dhawlikar said her favorite part was the Lion Dance.
“It was very attractive to the audience,” she said. “So they came up to different people and approached them. It was right in front of our eyes. I’ve never seen it so close up before. It was interesting.”
Others, like SMG freshman Vivian Yeh, said the best part about the event was the food, especially the sushi.
“Every time they put it out, it just disappeared within like five minutes, so you had to be right there when they put it out,” she said.
ASU treasurer and CAS sophomore Fang Yuan said he enjoyed the diverse group of people who came to the event.
“It’s a lot of fun for everyone involved,” he said. “So many international students are here, especially from the Asian countries, don’t really get the time to go home because we don’t get a separate holiday [for the New Year] . . . we thought, why not bring it to them? We have arts and crafts, we have games, we have all sorts of different foods to try, so it’s really nice.”
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