Chinese Student Organization puts on New Year’s festival

The Chinese Student Organization (CSO) held a Chinese New Year's event Friday in the Student Union, and shared their culture with American students as well as other international students.

President of CSO, Wenyi Li, a sophomore mathematics major of Jiangsu, China, said the Chinese New Year is the most important national holiday for Chinese people because it signifies the beginning of a new year.

According to chinatravel.com, the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, starts on the first day of the first lunar month and is usually in late January or early February, and ends on the 15th day of the first lunar month with the Lantern Festival.

Wenyi said in 2012 the Spring Festival began Jan. 23 and will end Feb. 6.

He also said during the holidays all Chinese people come back to their home and eat dinner with their families.

Chinese people celebrate this holiday with fireworks and dancing. Traditionally, many northern Chinese people eat dumplings.

"For the Chinese students, we don't have the time to be with our family (on the holidays) so we're here to put all the Chinese students together and have a very good New Year's event," Wenyi said.

"ASU Chinese students are excited about this event. I appreciate the leadership of CSO that has worked tirelessly and many students who have been involved to make this event a success," said Jie Miao, an advisor of CSO.

"The celebration and performance organized by CSO will bring the holiday spirit to all ASU Chinese students and increase the cultural vibrancy on our campus."

The Chinese New Year is not meant to be just for Chinese students to celebrate. It is also for American students and other nationalities to experience an important part of Chinese culture.

"It's like a cultural exchange for the foreign students, but especially for the American students," Wenyi said.

CSO featured many different types of shows to celebrate the New Year.

There was a fashion show in which boys and girls wore traditional Chinese clothes.

There was also a hip-hop dance show and a music show featuring Chinese songs, and an American woman performed a Chinese song wearing a traditional Chinese dress.

CSO also had a dating show named "A Chance to Love."

In this show, the boys showed up on stage one by one and the girls tried to decide which of boys they wanted. In the end, a girl who was acting like a boy and a boy who was acting like a girl became a couple.

One of members of CSO, Pei Yang Li, a junior international business major of Chengdu, China, said he enjoyed the dating show the best among all the shows CSO performed.

Pei Yang said this show originated from a popular Chinese television show.

"I really like to organize a show that makes many people happy and it makes me satisfied and happy," Pei Yang said.

American students enjoyed the event equally as much as the Chinese students did.

"The Chinese New Year event was very entertaining. I felt that everyone from any background could enjoy it.

The Chinese student organization did a great job at presenting many forms of entertainment," said Jenny Veal, a junior international business major of Bono.

Veal said she recently came back from a study abroad in China, so while she was at the event she felt like she was back in China.

Veal also said she enjoyed that the program was presented in Chinese as well as English.

"This event really gave students the opportunity to experience another culture as well as the language," she said.

Wenyi said the Chinese Student Organization might be putting on another festival on Feb.6, to celebrate the end of the Chinese New Year holiday.