Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 18, but the Chinese Students Association, Taiwanese American Union and Association of Chinese Americans celebrated early this year with their first-ever Lunar New Year festival. The year of the pig was rung in with a celebration complete with demonstrations of the Chinese martial art form Wushu, paper lanterns, Panda Express and lion dancing, a dance which mimics the movements of a lion.
“(The three groups) share a lot of the same culture,” said Candice Hung, president of the Taiwanese American Union. “I think it is important to show the unity and sense of community between the different groups on campus.”
Ackerman Grand Ballroom was decorated Monday with red and gold balloons, traditional colors which represent luck and wealth, respectively, in Chinese tradition. At the entrance, the groups handed out red envelopes with raffle tickets inside.
The red envelopes represented a Chinese tradition in which adults give red envelopes full of money to children for the new year. The tickets in the red envelopes represented money, as they could be used to participate in different activities at the event.
The three groups came together for the first time this year to organize the event, which attracted over 100 students.
“The reason for the festival is to bring the experience (of the Chinese New Year) to the UCLA campus,” said Jeff Luyau, president of the Association of Chinese Americans. “We want to share that with the other students and show them why it is so important to us.”
The New Year is an extremely important holiday in Chinese culture and is widely celebrated, said Oscar Liu, vice president of the Chinese Students Association.
“The New Year is the most celebrated holiday in Chinese culture,” Liu said. “It’s been a tradition for over a thousand years at least.”
Many students said they were thankful for the event since they wouldn’t be home to celebrate the New Year with their families.
“I’m not going to be going home for Chinese New Year and I usually celebrate it with my parents,” said Katherine Wu, a second-year biology student. “So they told me to go and find a Chinese New Year party on campus.”
The ballroom was filled with booths where guests could learn how to make paper lanterns, Chinese knots and traditional calligraphy or play Chinese chess.
Guests were entertained with performances throughout the night. The Association of Chinese Americans lion dance team and the UCLA Wushu team performed, as well as the Taiwanese Associated Union choir.
Andy Tran, a second-year microbiology and molecular genetics student, has been training in Wushu for four years and is a member of the UCLA Wushu team.
“When the communist party rose up they didn’t want people practicing martial arts because they were afraid it would lead to a revolt,” Tran said. “So the people created a new form of martial art that deals with show and dance so that it would be okay with the government.”
Members from all of the different groups performed a skit about the “nien,” a legendary monster that comes out and eats people on New Year’s Day. In the end, the monster was scared off by fire crackers, and that is why fire crackers are used during the Chinese New Year celebration, Liu said.
Many traditions accompany the beginning of the new year, including cleaning one’s entire house, cutting their hair, and wearing new clothes on the day of the New Year, said Justine Lin, secretary of the Chinese Students Association and event coordinator.
There are also traditional foods that are eaten on the New Year. Noodles are eaten for long life, dumplings represent money, and one should never finish all the food on their plate in order to have something left over for the entire year, Lin said.