By Jilly Horaneck

Elm Staff Writer

The rush of the holiday season continued after winter break at Washington College. On Saturday, Jan. 28th, the Global Educa- tion Office (GEO) hosted a Chinese Lunar Year party.

Professor David Hull, assistant professor of Chinese, said, “We usually call [this holiday] the Lunar New Year, rather than the Chinese New Year, because almost all civilizations measure time by the moon and the sun. This is the biggest holiday in Chi- na.” This year, the Lunar New Year came early; the holiday nor- mally takes place in February. “It was a bit of a stretch being that we just got back from break, so we were throwing everything to- gether at last minute,” Hull said. At the party, students ate homemade Lunar New Year food such as white rice, vegetable noodles, and dumplings. Sibal Ahi, assistant director of the GEO, organized the party. “We cooked a lot of Chinese food for the Saturday celebration,” she said. The GEO celebrates the Lunar New Year every year. This was the first year they had volunteers come and make food in- stead of ordering take out. Students also watched the Chinese New Year show, which is a special television program that airs each year, and tried their hand at Chinese calligraphy in order to better understand Chi- nese culture. Sarah Wu, a first year exchange student from China, said, “Some important traditions for the Lunar New Year are eating dumplings and watching fireworks in our hometowns. The se- niors in the families will give kids pocket money.” Wu added she wants more people to learn about Chinese culinary traditions. Dr. Hull said, “[The Chinese] have all these very old traditions as well as a bunch of new traditions, especially in the People’s Re- public. They just get two New Years celebrations. The difference is the calendar new year is still a celebration, it’s still a good time to go out… Then, a few weeks later…they have the Lunar New Year, and there are a billion different traditions and special things going on.” Another tradition for the Lunar New Year is going back homefor the holiday. “The one most important thing is you have to physically go back to your family home,” said Hull. “There’s a huge pressure on the planes, and especially the trains. So you don’t want to go anywhere near a train station during the festival time. They have done studies saying this is one of the biggest hu- man migrations across the globe.” However, this is not the case for many exchange students at WC. “It is very difficult not being home for the celebration,” Wu said. Hull wants to bring more students from both the U.S. and China together in

more events like this in the future. “We have to find ways of getting the folks who grew up in the U.S. to see exciting things about Chinese culture…We have to find ways of helping our students from China by giving them spaces to com- municate their culture…which is one of the ideals of the college experience in general, but it’s not easy,” Hull said. To help students who cannot go home for their holidays like the Lunar New Year, the GEO is “working with the Student Events Board and the Student Government Association to create more intercultural events on the campus,” said Ahi.