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Chinese New Year a celebration of family, luck and tradition

Feb. 19 marks the beginning of the Year of the Sheep. Despite being miles away from home, Chinese students are still finding ways to celebrate the annual festival

February 18, 2015

Huiqing Zheng, a doctoral student, explains the festivities of the Chinese New Year.

Photo by Zoe Schubot | The State News

The Chinese New Year, also referred to as the Spring Festival, is a celebratory event that is the longest public festival in China. It is one of the most important holidays for Chinese people around the world, similar in importance to Thanksgiving or Christmas in the Western world.

This year, the festival falls on Feb. 19 and marks the beginning of the Year of the Sheep.

Luckily, Chinese students like Ci, a construction management sophomore, have found a community of students at MSU who make celebrating away from home more bearable.

“I just spend it with my friends,” Ci said. “I don’t think that they have the exact environment of what we do in China ... it’s just different, but it’s still really cool.”

Anticipated festivities

In China, the new year celebration lasts 15 days, with each day bringing a new round of festivities. Due to its basis on the lunar calendar, rather than the Earth’s orbit of the sun, the Chinese New Year generally falls sometime in February, according to Xiaoshi Li, an assistant professor in Chinese and second language studies at MSU.

Families gather during the celebration to eat traditional food, play games and enjoy each other’s company. The primary focus of the new year celebration is coming together and bringing in the new year surrounded by family and friends.

Li said traditions to celebrate the new year include family reunions, eating dumplings and sweet, sticky rice cakes, playing firecrackers, hanging red lanterns, putting red couplet scrolls on the doors, putting red paper cuttings on the windows and doors, children receiving lucky money in red envelopes (and) the dragon and lion dances.

The Chinese also associate different animals with each new year. According to Huiqing Zheng, a third year microbiology and molecular genetics doctoral student, the Chinese zodiac features 12 animals that rotate every year.

As the Year of the Horse ends, those celebrating Chinese New Year are welcoming in the Year of the Sheep.

People born in the Year of the Sheep are said to be calm, gentle and thoughtful, according to Li. Other Years of the Sheep include 1943, 1967 and 1991.

Storied tradition

Each celebration that takes place during Spring Festival has a special significance. Many of the customs and traditions that take place during the festival have roots in the story of its origin.

In the story of the festival, according to Li, centuries ago, Chinese villagers were terrorized by a lion-like monster known as the “Nian,” the Chinese word for year. A wise man then told the villagers to scare off the Nian with firecrackers, drums and red decorations.

The villagers took the advice of the old man and successfully rid the village of the Nian. Every year on the anniversary, the Chinese celebrate this victory and greet each other with the phrase “Guo Nian” which means “the passing of the beast,” and they repeat these practices to bring good luck into the new year.

The red decorations are used because in ancient tradition the Nian was said to be afraid of the color red. The fireworks set off to commemorate the new year are also used as a way to scare off bad luck — the loud noises produced by the celebration are another tactic believed to scare off the Nian.

“It is a really important holiday for family reunion people to come together to celebrate and pray for good fortune in the coming new year,” said Zheng.

The idea of bringing good luck and fortune while leaving evil spirits behind is a key part of the Spring Festival.

Zheng said that his favorite tradition during the celebration is giving the red envelopes to children with gifts inside, usually money.

“The older people would give a red envelope to the younger people,” Zheng said. “As long as you’re not married, you get them from your parents, or your grandparents will still give you a red envelope that has money or stuff like that.”

Elizabeth Xie, a hospitality business junior, said her favorite part of the Spring Festival is the fireworks that are set off at midnight.

Celebrating at MSU

To help ease the anxiety of spending the holiday away from home, there are plenty of on- and off-campus events and activities for the approximately 4,400 Chinese students celebrating the Chinese New Year in East Lansing.

International student adviser and communications and experiential learning coordinator Xiaoyu Yin said most of the Chinese New Year celebration events on campus are led by student groups, but some MSU units or departments might be involved in organizing and planning these events as well.

Additionally, the Chinese community in Greater Lansing is hosting their celebration off campus too. The events are open to all community members, Yin said.

Many Chinese students claim that while it is difficult to be away from family during the holiday, the large Chinese community at MSU makes it easy to find people to celebrate with and they enjoy having an opportunity to share their culture with their non-Chinese friends who haven’t been exposed to the New Year festivities before.

“Most students will arrange activities, for example a potluck dinner to make dumplings together with other friends,” Yin said. “They will also invite their domestic or other international student friends to join the celebration and introduce them to the traditions and cultures behind this festival.”

While the celebration might not be as grand as it is at home, students who are spending Spring Festival here at MSU have similar plans for their celebrations, most of which include eating traditional Chinese food and spending time with their closest friends.

“I like to hang out with my friends. We get together to make some Chinese food and there’s a traditional TV show on Spring Festival every year that is made by our TV programming,” said Shizi Huang, a supply chain management freshman.

However, while it’s nice to have friends to ring in the New Year with, there is no substitute for spending the holidays with family.

“There are so many Chinese people here like, it’s so nice, it’s good,” Xie said. “But maybe I will FaceTime or something with my family.”

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