Spring Festival Party
Chinese New Year is the most important festival for all Chinese. Chinese New Year is also called the Spring Festival. It is celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. Celebrations traditionally run from the evening preceding the first day, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first calendar month.
The first day of the New Year fell on the new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 in 2018. The first day of the Lunar New Year was on Friday, Feb. 16, initiating the Year of the Dog. In China, people get a long holiday of eight days for this important festival. This is the longest holiday for employees.
The biggest event of any Chinese New Year’s Eve is the annual reunion dinner. Dishes consisting of special meats are served at the tables as a main course for the dinner and offering for the New Year. This meal is comparable to Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. and remotely similar to Christmas dinner in other countries with a high percentage of Christians. Many people do not live in the same city with their parents. But most of them will come back home before this night, so they can eat this special meal together.
Chinese students at UMPI do not have a holiday for this special festival, so they cannot go back home to stay with their families. But they still had some special activity on this day. Zhu-qi Lu is a math professor at UMPI. He grew up in China. Every Chinese New Year, he invites all of the Chinese students in Presque Isle to his home to have a nice meal, which is so sweet. Feb. 15 was 2018’s Spring Festival. But that day was Thursday. Many of the students had classes Thursday and Friday and did not have enough time to go out. So they chose to celebrate Friday night, after classes. Zhu-qi Lu and his wife made a wonderful meal.
How did Zhu-qi Lu feel after making such a big dinner for 20 people? “It is unreal to say that I was not tired. But you know that is the important festival for all Chinese, so we have to complete that. We know that all of you guys come from China, you want to spend a wonderful time on this night. And all of you must miss family so much. We want to give you some feeling like home,” Zhu-qi Lu said.
It would seem that all the preparations must take a long time? “About one week,” Zhu-qi Lu said. “We have classes in the daytime, so we just can make these foods after classes.”
Was it worth all the work? “Of course,” Zhu-qi Lu said. “We are so happy to see you are enjoying that.”
Yang Liu captured the feelings of many who attended the dinner. “First of all, thank Uncle Lu and his wife so much. They gave us the feeling like our parents and made such a wonderful dinner for us. I enjoyed this night and the delicious food,” Yang Liu said.
