Ellen McAllister
Creative Editor
This year’s Lunar New Year celebration was one for all ages. It was held at the Wooster Mennonite Church, where students from the College were invited to partake in the celebration alongside various community members and their children on Sunday, Jan. 30., one day before the real Lunar New Year which took place this year on Tuesday, Feb. 1. While the date changes from year to year with the orbit of the moon, the traditions of the celebration remain the same. When Lunar New Year was first celebrated, it started out as a way to ward off a lion-like monster, named Nian, by using drums, firecrackers and hanging red on doors. It has now evolved into the spirited celebration that is seen today.
The New Year celebrations that many of us are familiar with, held on Dec. 31, are typically big parties and gatherings that are meant to start the following year off positively. Lunar New Year is a little bit different. Although it is still a fun and festive occasion, more importantly, it is a time to look back on the year and celebrate accomplishments, usually lasting up to two weeks. The celebration started with a New Year song and was followed by videos from a former College of Wooster student explaining how her family celebrates the holiday. The microphone was then passed around, allowing people to share a favorite holiday from their culture and why it was important to them. Before heading off to all the activities, everyone waved hello to the Wooster Mennonite’s sister church in Japan, something they do on the last Sunday of each month.
Both the good and the bad of the past year were celebrated with lots of activities to participate in and lots of great food to eat. Food from China Garden was served buffet style so that people could try many different things, including the very popular dumplings. Paper lanterns were made with red paper and gold ribbon and there was a fancy tea station. Attendees could build traditional Lunar New Year items out of Legos and had the opportunity to learn how to write good luck in calligraphy. Even though the festivities seemed like the highlight of the morning, the fact that everyone could be together to celebrate was even more important.
Vincent Noonan ’22, an international studies major and Chinese minor, decided to attend the Lunar New Year celebration to learn more about it and to spend time with his friends and professor. While he has not celebrated the Lunar New Year since he was a child, he still thought that the event had nice decorations and an overall pleasing aesthetic. Noonan made a paper lantern and had all of his friends and his professor sign in their native language. He commented that it was neat that the table settings were the flags of the countries that celebrate Lunar New Year.
According to Zoe Seymore ’22, the social coordinator of the Chinese department, communication is vital to making an event like this a success. She loves celebrating Lunar New Year with her friends at the College and the celebration at the Wooster Mennonite Church gave her a new way to celebrate a holiday that is very important to her. Seymore would like to thank all those who helped plan the event and all those who attended. “It is always great seeing the campus community come together to celebrate something like this and I am excited for future events!”