Friday, March 29, 2024

Chinese students celebrate New Year in East Lansing

January 23, 2012

Xiao-huang Yin wishes he was born in the Chinese calendar’s Year of the Dragon.

“Anyone born in the year of the dragon is considered the best,” said Yin, director of Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities in the Asian Studies Center. “They’re good in marriage, life or basically anything.”

Monday marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year, as well as the beginning of the Year of the Dragon — the most symbolic animal in the Chinese culture. Each year of the Chinese calendar, which is more than 3,000 years old, is represented by an animal in a 12-year cycle, and the dragon is by far the most highly regarded, Yin said.

“More Chinese (purposely) are born in the Year of the Dragon for good luck,” he said. “A lot of hospitals (will be) overcrowded.”

The Chinese culture celebrates the Spring Festival in the weeks surrounding the Chinese New Year, which Yin said is the most important holiday in the culture.

“The festival represents the core values of Chinese culture,” he said. “It’s about being with family (and) sharing that mutual support, being loyal to your friends and being tolerant.”

To celebrate the Chinese New Year at MSU, engineering freshman Neil Yao and economics freshman FangYuan Song spent Sunday evening baking dumplings, a traditional New Year treat, in one of the kitchen areas of Owen Graduate Hall.

“We are here, and we can’t go home, so it was interesting,” Yao said.

Although she and Yao hosted their own celebration on campus, Song said she still called home to wish her family New Year’s greetings.

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, Yin said traditionally a larger dinner is served, featuring fish, which represents a hope for a surplus of food in the coming year, and families try to prepare an even number of courses, which represents harmony and balance.

In order to include Chinese students in his celebration this year, Weijun Zhao, director of the MSU Office of China Programs, said he invited students to help him cook Chinese food.

“The students probably feel lonely and homesick, so I tried to give them a home environment (at MSU),” he said.

During the festival, Zhao said many families spend time attending movies, visiting theaters, watching ball games, line dancing, holding bonfires and giving their children red envelopes with Chinese money in them.

“The young kids shout, ‘Happy New Year, now give me red envelopes,’” he said.

Marketing junior DongJin Choi, president of the MSU Chinese Club, said he feels it is important to bring aspects of Chinese culture to campus because each year, more and more students from China travel to MSU.

There currently are 3,012 international students from China at MSU, according to statistics from the Office for International Students and Scholars.

“Everything is so global, (so) you have to understand people from other places,” he said. “If you want to work with them, you have to understand who they are and what they celebrate.”

Although Yin said he still is disappointed he wasn’t born in the Year of the Dragon, he’s thankful in the long run.

“I would have encountered too many Dragon boys and girls competing with me for entering schools, looking for scholarships and finding jobs in the same year,” he said. “So I sometimes feel being not born in the Dragon Year may help me better survive or succeed — at least in the Chinese world.”

Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Chinese students celebrate New Year in East Lansing” on social media.