By Jia Mei
“The biggest highlight for me was what a team effort this event was…”
2021 marks the year of the Ox and the first virtual Lunar New Year celebration at Colorado College. Despite the challenges of planning for a virtual Lunar New Year (LNY), Riley Hutchings– the Cultural Program Coordinator (CPC) for the Chinese Department this year– gathered a team of students to brainstorm and plan for the LNY events. After many planning meetings and rehearsals on Zoom, the LNY celebration turned out to be a huge success. Riley emphasizes that this success was a product of the collaborative effort of the students, staff, and faculty from the Chinese Department, Asian Student Union (ASU), and Chinese Student Association (CSA).
Riley recalls that the collaborative effort was so clear during the event, given the variety of performances—from Vietnamese Fan Dance to Guzheng to Mandarin and Cantonese Song Performances to Fashion Show to Culture Trivia.
Riley reflects, “It’s awesome to see everybody coming together despite the distance to celebrate a sweet holiday.”
“I just want to make sure that students who celebrate this holiday feel that their traditions are being honored during this event.”
Although Riley does not celebrate LNY, she wanted to honor and create a space for students who do celebrate it at home. This year, the event was called “Lunar New Year” to create a more inclusive environment for all students who celebrate LNY in their own way. While Lunar New Year has traditionally had a focus on Chinese culture at Colorado College due to the presence of many Chinese international students and Chinese language learners, the celebration this year features students from different cultures sharing various ways of celebrating the new year.
Aiden You ’21 shared the ways that Lunar New Year was celebrated in South Korea—from eating rice cake soup to the younger generations’ paying respect to the elderly. Jennifer Lam ’21, Co-Chair of ASU, shared the ways in which Vietnamese culture celebrates Lunar New Year.
Lam says, “It was nice sharing Vietnamese fan dance and sharing Vietnamese lunar new year (Tết) and how we celebrate traditions. I think it was cool when I shared a picture of how my parents put offerings in the shrine.”
A commonality observed between different cultures is that Lunar New Year was a time for family gathering and blessings to welcome the arrival of a new year.
“A million great ideas on how to make Lunar New Year celebration fun and engaging on Zoom”
Riley highlights the great ideas that came about from the planning meetings: “There were a million great ideas to make Lunar New Year celebration fun and engaging, such as sending out new year gifts to people even if they’re not on campus.”
Participants who signed up for the event received gifts in the mail before the event. Elaine Zhang’ 23 and Huang Yang’ 22 (Co-Chairs of CSA) collaborated with Riley to send gifts to on-campus and off-campus students. The gifts include Lunar New Year decorations and a red envelope with a lucky number inside. This number was for the random drawing at the end of the virtual celebration event.
Additionally, Riley ordered individually packaged food and planned for socially-distanced pick-up of the food for students on campus. She also sent money to those off-campus to purchase their own food, so everyone can eat and enjoy the event.
Eleanor Dong ’21, Jia Mei ’21, Elaine, and Yang helped plan the pre-recorded songs for the event. With the help of their friends, they were able to engage over 10+ students to participate in these song performances to be played during the event.
“Got really great feedback for the event”
When asked about the reception of the event, Riley comments, “Throughout the event in the chat, professors, faculty members, and staff members were so excited, so proud, so impressed by our students.” She also mentioned that she got a few appreciation emails after the event.
She noted that one professor projected the Lunar New Year celebration for her kid, and her daughter jumping happily during the Kahoot trivia section led by Machi Niiya, the Japanese CPC.
During the PowerPoint with artworks created by Chinese international students, a few international students messaged Riley, saying that they related to the sentiments of feeling homesick during this pandemic. As a picture is worth a thousand words, these artworks touched the heart of many Chinese international students at the event who are currently in the US who are not able to go home to celebrate the new year (春节) with their families in China.
“Teamwork makes the dream work”
This successful virtual Lunar New Year celebration would not have been possible without all the hard work of every participant and planning member. Even in the face of pandemic challenges, Colorado College students thought of creative ways to celebrate and bring communities together to welcome a better New Year in 2021.
The Lunar New Year Celebration was made possible by the following sponsors at Colorado College: Asian Studies Department, the Department of Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian Studies, Asian Student Union, Chinese Student Association, and the Asian House.
