While Chinese students in their homeland will enjoy a monthlong break to celebrate the New Year with family, Chinese international students at Ohio University will still be hitting the books.
Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the most significant of the Chinese holidays. Sometimes called the Lunar New Year, the festival usually begins on the first day of the first lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which falls on Jan. 26 this year, and ends on the fifteenth day.
The Chinese Students and Scholars Association at OU will be hosting a celebration for the 2009 Spring Festival Sunday. Beginning at 3:00 p.m., the party includes a stage performance at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium and a dinner sponsored by China King in the Baker University Center Ballroom starting at 5 p.m.
The purpose of the event isn't just to remind Chinese international students who are missing the month-long holiday of their homeland, said Ming Li, director of the School of Recreation and Sports Sciences and the chairman of association's organizing committee.
We also want to introduce American people to Chinese culture
traditional customs dance and music which reflect the multiple aspects of Chinese art
he said.
The event has been the largest international student activity hosted by a single international student organization at OU in recent years, said Jim Zhu, a professor of electrical engineering and the cochair of stage performance for the association organizing committee.
The fact that people are willing to get up and celebrate
I think that's pretty great
he said. And this is a community activity; it just shows how united Chinese students are.
In past years, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association held The Spring Festival in the Old Baker Center Ballroom, which could admit only 400 people. But after complaints of limited seating, the association changed the location to Memorial Auditorium last year to accommodate a larger audience, Zhu said. Last year, half of the 1,000 attendees were American students, faculty and Athens residents, he said.
Including all Chinese students, Chinese American faculty, visiting scholars and their family members, there are almost 1,000 Chinese at OU this year, Li said.
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Miaomiao Shao
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