TASNEEM LUKMANJEE
Students and faculty gathered in McLaren Conference Center for a Lunar New Year celebration filled with cultural performances, games and treats. The Feb. 4 event was hosted by the Center for Asia Pacific Studies and thirteen Asian student organizations and programs.
“It’s really just to promote cultural understanding of what the Lunar New Year celebration is like because people always say Chinese New Year but Vietnam celebrates it. They just call it something different,” said Louise Li, marketing and project manager at the Center, “We say ‘Lunar New Year Celebration’ to really keep it inclusive.”
As students entered the hall, they were greeted with tables offering trivia and arts and crafts. “I loved the diversity in activities that you can do, from a Vietnamese gambling game to lucky lantern crafts, Chinese calligraphy and even dragon puppet making,” said senior business major Chloe Lenguyen. Attendees played bingo by visiting each organization’s table to win a customized tote bag featuring a figure of a snake spelling out “2025.”
Lunar New Year, sometimes called the Spring Festival, marks the first day of a new year via the lunisolar calendar, which is regulated by the movements of the sun and moon and changes often unlike the Gregorian calendar which is used in most countries today.
The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) was among the Asian student organizations who hosted the event. With sweet treats and a large white sheet with different images of animals, the student organization offered visitors the chance to play Bau Cua Tom Ca. “Bau Cua is a traditional Viet street gambling game but we gamble with candy. It’s super fun, you just place your bet on whichever is your most lucky animal or symbol and you double or triple your profits with whatever the dice tell you,” explains Peter Nguyen, senior marketing major and president of the VSA.
As a loud drumbeat echoed around McLaren, performers in a vibrant lion costume emerged and began dancing around the room in a splash of orange, red and yellow. “I used to watch [lion dancers] perform every Lunar New Year in San Jose, and to be able to experience something I was sad to miss this year from being in San Francisco was so nostalgic and nice,” said Lenguyen.
The lion dance is a popular part of Lunar New Year celebrations, and its history dates back 5,000 years. The dance is performed to bring prosperity and good luck as well as to ward off evil in honor of the new year.
The Center for Asia Pacific Studies distributed an array of prizes, including candy, coin bags and themed stickers. International Student and Scholar Services also had a station for visitors to build their own Lunar New Year fortune tellers.
Junior economics major Paulina Diaz Mandujano said, “Circling around [the room] was so fun. I spun multiple wheels for prizes, played cultural games and learned trivia about multiple East Asian countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year. It was so nice to see everyone decked out in their cultural attires and oh, I got a new tote.”
Reflecting on the event, Nguyen said “It’s amazing to have such a great community and a great space to celebrate, especially those of us [who] are international students that aren’t able to celebrate with our family far from home so this is great to just kind of celebrate with our USF family.”
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