This past Friday marked the first day of the Lunar New Year — the most important holiday for our International Students from China. Tina Yen, dean of International Students, writes that this holiday is a time to be with family and friends, and, of course, to feast! In China, the holiday is celebrated over two weeks and people often travel home to see loved ones — resulting in the largest human migration in the world.

To celebrate the holiday, a plentiful feast was held in the AFS school cafeteria this past Friday for our International Students, their host families and their visiting family members. The menu included a variety of stir-fried dishes, dumplings, noodles, and even homemade dishes cooked by members of our community, including senior Brian Wang, sophomore Yolanda Du, freshman Sara Ni and freshman Kathy Liang. Host families contributed cakes and cookies for dessert. Freshman Marc Wang, founder of the School’s Cardistry Club, provided entertainment with card tricks while junior Cressida Zeng shared a traditional song.

The evening ended with a raffle for prizes, including lucky red envelopes. In Chinese culture, lucky envelopes filled with money or hong bao are given out during the Lunar New Year to bring the recipient good luck and prosperity in the year to come.

The feast was just one of several ways the school marked the Lunar New Year. Students and families joined in making dozens of meat or vegetable dumplings, the school cafeteria served an entire menu of Asian-inspired dishes and International Students hung red lanterns in the entrance to the Faulkner Library.