The Lunar New Year, also popularly known as the Chinese New Year, is a celebration of the new year on the traditional Chinese calendar. This festival is the time to share love and joy with friends and family after a gruelling year of work and professional obligations and is the most important festival in China and neighbouring south-east Asian countries.
In order to recreate the feeling of the Spring Festival – as it is known in China – the Global China Connection (GCC) at Jacobs University organises a Lunar New Year event on campus; it invites everyone at Jacobs to learn more about the occasion and spend quality time with friends in a home away from home.
This year was no different – the campus and its surroundings witnessed a pompous celebration of the new year on the 13th of February. With a wide variety of performances and presentations, traditional food from the far east and extravagant fireworks, the event truly gave everyone an insight into the grand festival that the Chinese New Year is.
“One of the main responsibilities of the GCC is to promote the colourful Chinese culture, and celebrating the Lunar New Year is one of the best ways to do it,” said Joseph Ng (ECE’20), the current president of the Global China Connection. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to get together and enjoy good food and good company.”
According to ancient Chinese myths, the celebration of the Lunar New Year began with the victory of some villagers over the Nian monster. The monster was known to eat children in the middle of the night and destroy villages; it was incredibly difficult to defeat him. Tired of his antics, the villagers got together to devise a plan to get rid of Nian once and for all; during this meeting, someone decided to exploit the monster’s weaknesses – the colour red and loud noise – to solve the problem. Sure enough, after decorating the village in red and setting off firecrackers, the monster was never heard from again. As a result of this, the lunar new year is marked by an excessive and beautiful display of the colour red. Among the many festivities is the gifting of red envelopes with cash to young members of the family by elders. “One of my fondest memories of Lunar New Year with my family was when my cousins and I received the red envelopes! We got really rich off that money,” exclaimed Joseph. Joseph hails from Malaysia, where the celebrations are similar to those in mainland China.
Celebrations across Asia vary in terms of food and certain traditions, a point that was beautifully explained at the Lunar New Year at Jacobs. Presentations by students from South Korea, Malaysia, China and Vietnam elaborated on the local celebrations.
For Joseph, the organising process was not too difficult and he was incredibly thankful to the team he got to work with. “Most of the people didn’t need a lot of guidance or instructions, which was nice. They all kept up with me!” said Joseph. The toughest part of everything? “Getting the right amount of food! We can never predict how many people will show up, but luckily it all worked out.”
The event ended with a firework show on the soccer field and Joseph couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. “Some factors were out of my control, like technical difficulties, but I’m satisfied!”
In the words of the marketing head of the event, Christopher Jensen (IBA’21), who comes from Singapore, “Events like these gives us an opportunity to display the diversity of cultures and people that this university has to offer.”
BY USHASHI BASU (INDIA) | CLASS OF 2020
