Celebration: Tiger roars in Pause

Student groups rang in the Year of the Tiger Saturday with great festivity featuring food, fashion and entertainment to a nearly full house of students, professors and families. Many students found the the event, featuring Chinese, Tibetan and Vietnamese traditions, both entertaining and informative.

Although the spring festival is commonly thought of as a primarily Chinese celebration, some students were surprised at the presence of other cultures.

"I was glad that Tibetan and Vietnamese cultures were also represented in the Lunar New Year celebration," Lynna Long '13 said.

The night began with a performance of the traditional Lion Dance by Ha Family Entertainment from the Twin Cities.

"I liked the Lion Dance at the beginning. I thought it was a really good way to open the New Year's celebration," said Long.

The performance included drumming, cymbals and furry, colorful dragons. The dragons were piloted by acrobatic dancers who brought the dragons' exciting dance for good luck in the new year to life.

Professor of History and Asian Studies Robert Entenmann gave a short lecture about his first spring festival experience in Asia. He remembered "eating, eating and eating," and walking down the main street of town the next morning, wading ankle deep through residual red paper from the fireworks.

A fashion show followed, in which members of the organizations exhibited colorful, traditional, festive clothing from each culture represented. The event also raffled off prizes from various countries and gave audience members lucky red money envelopes.

"Since attending the Lunar New Year festival, I'm [$13] richer, and the lucky red envelope I won in the raffle has brought me luck already," Andrew Mullins '11 said.

"The food was so good, and the student [organizations] cooked it all instead of having it catered," Long said.

Popular modern as well as traditional dances and songs highlighted different aspects of the diverse cultures.

"I especially enjoyed the Jasmine Flower dance," Garvey Liu '12 said.

Popular musical numbers brought lots of laughter to the night.

"I thought the group of guys doing a Chinese pop dance was pretty funny," Eric Becklin '12 said.

Chinese Culture Club members performed a skit called "The Story of Nian," which wove a dark tale of the history behind the New Year tradition. Nian, which means "year" in Chinese, was an ominous monster bringing death and fear to villagers at the closing of each year, until one year, when a mysterious man, Bodi Satfa, scared Nian away. The Bodi Satfa taught the people of China how to ward off the monster Nian with the color red, fire and the crackling of fireworks.

"The spring festival is about casting aside all of the bad things that happened in the past year, and welcoming new beginnings and having luck in the new year," Anna Higgins '12 said when summing up the night's message.

The other student organizations that helped put on the event were the Chinese Culture Club, Team Tibet, and Vietnamese Organization: Inspiring Cultural Engagement, along with Student Government Association.

schares@stolaf.edu