Lunar New Year, over 3,000 years old, marks spring’s arrival and a new lunisolar year, ending 15 days later with the Lantern Festival.
Isabelle Shih would usually spend Lunar New Year with her grandparents in New Jersey, enjoying a meal to celebrate their Chinese heritage.
But this year, the business major was with her Northeastern University family in London marking the festival a little differently. She enjoyed some bubble tea after watching a Lion dance performance by the London Chinatown Chinese Association.
The festivities at Devon House, which included lunch of Chinese food, were held to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which ushered in the Year of the Snake.
Similar events were held on Northeastern’s global campuses, including Boston and Oakland, California.
The holiday is celebrated with family and friends, and includes feasting, fireworks, parties and parades. Shih said the Northeastern celebration reminded her of back home.
“We traditionally eat fish and then exchange red envelopes,” she added, referencing the ritual of giving Hongbao — red envelopes filled with money — to friends and family to wish them good luck for the year ahead.
With its origins dating back more than 3,000 years, Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar, which combines the lunar and solar calendars. It culminates 15 days later with the Lantern Festival.
Also known as the Spring Festival, Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in China. The festival is also celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam (where it is known as Tet) and countries with significant overseas Chinese populations.
On the Boston campus, students Alex Smith Lizandra and Diego Orret came to United Table at International Village to see a friend perform with the Way May Lion Dance group.
The group, which is a part of the Asian American Cultural Center Boston, performed a traditional Southern Lion variation of the dance that is believed to ward off bad spirits and bring in good luck for the new year.
The red and golden fluffy lion awoke at the food court entrance to the rhythmic beat of a drum, gongs and cymbals. Its ears twitched, mouth opened and eyelids fluttered as it moved past food stations adorned with red lanterns toward the seating area where students ate lunch.
Flirting with onlookers, the lion rose onto its hind legs before turning to “cai qing” — a food offering of lettuce and oranges. Dancing, it playfully “munched” and “spit out” the food, symbolizing wealth and prosperity.
Students smiled, cheered and recorded the performance on their phones. The dance ended after the lion made a full circle around the room.
“It was pretty entertaining and impressive,” said Lizandra, who studies computer engineering and robotics. “It is pretty impressive, especially the guy in the back having to hold the girl a few times and for a while.”
“If I didn’t know this was happening and I was having lunch, this would be a nice little interjection,” said Orret, an environmental science major.
Mia Chan, who studies behavioral neuroscience and East Asian studies, said she traditionally celebrated the Lunar New Year with her family by going to the festival in Chinatown in New York City and eating traditional food.
“It’s cool to have a tiny bit of a substitute,” she said of the Northeastern celebration.
Audrey Lei, an international business and finance major who also grew up in New York City, said watching the performance reminded her of home. It is considered good luck to touch a dragon or a lion at the Lunar New Year celebration, she said.
Meanwhile in Oakland, the menu at Founders Commons included Cantonese Chicken, Long Life Noodles and pork dumplings.
Business majors Naihi Kaki and Alice Saranukool filled their plates with chicken and noodles.
“It smells really good,” Kaki said. “They always bring the food up a notch when there’s a special event.”
Saranukool said that at home in Boston her family eats fried rice and duck on Lunar New Year. She said she’d like to visit Chinatown in Oakland, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
“This food is pretty similar. It looks good,” she said, noting that her family also exchanges Hongbao envelopes with friends and family.
Heritage reflected on Northeastern campus
Back in London, Northeastern student Caroline Zhu was enjoying the holiday with friends.
Zhu feasted on dumplings after speaking with family and friends back home in Nanjing, China.
“This is our first year not to have Lunar New Year with our families,” she said. “Normally I would be having a very big dinner with the whole family, with some traditional Chinese food.“Then we would all go out to celebrate and attend a festival. We would all wear red clothes for good luck.”
Ethan Chen swapped his normal annual dinner with his family in Philadelphia for a Chinese restaurant in the British capital to mark the new year. He said it was “pretty cool” to see part of his own heritage reflected on the Northeastern campus.
Lawrence Truppo said the celebration had raised his awareness of other cultures. The New Jersey native said the traditional dancing at Devon House in between lessons was what drew his attention to the festival.
“I didn’t know it was Lunar New Year, so it has been neat to see,” he said. “I came to school today not knowing I was going to see something like that. It was interesting.”