In a spirited celebration of shared culture, the Mandarin Club, Taiwanese Cultural Club (TCC), and Asian Cultural Appreciation Club (ACAC) came together to celebrate the Lunar New Year. For the past couple of weeks, Campo students have been walking around a campus decked in spring couplets and artistic depictions for the year of the horse, perhaps unaware of the effort that went into recognizing the holiday.
“I know a lot of people celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year, so having some sort of way to celebrate it at school was beneficial for everyone,” said senior and co-president of ACAC, Axel Harkavy. He mentioned previous efforts made to highlight relevant Asian events and holidays, hold meetings every month and occasionally collaborate with other groups.
“This year, we decided to host a joint meeting with TCC and Mandarin Club,” Harkavy explained. “We talked about the legend of the Lunar New Year with Nian and other stories from the Mandarin classes, as well as common traditions. That was mainly a Mandarin club-led effort, but all of our members got together to listen and learn.”
President of the Taiwanese Cultural Club, junior Angele Tseng, delved further into how the three affinity clubs tied Lunar New Year activities together during the fifteen-day period. “Usually, TCC collaborates with Mandarin Club. Last time, we held a joint meeting that covered street food and night markets in both China and Taiwan, since that’s a pretty big part of both cultures. This time, we had a joint meeting for the Lunar New Year presentation with ACAC, and then got people to advertise the Mandarin classes’ lion dance,” she said.
Tseng went on to talk about the decorating process, which Harkavy had noted as a voluntary process after school, two to three days prior to the New Year observation period. “This year we had new decorations…It meant getting a lot of art students involved with the horse decorations. I also noticed that while this was happening, more people referred to the holiday more as the Lunar New Year rather than the Chinese New Year, which I thought was nice since the holiday definitely includes other cultures that celebrate the same holiday,” Tseng said.
In a similar spirit, co-president of the Mandarin Club, senior Kaylah Ip, proceeded to talk about the significance of the holiday, which seemed to take on a newer vigor as a result of the three clubs’ collaboration. “Lunar New Year is more acknowledged at Campo out of all of the districts, which is something that Ms. Wun, our advisor, holds a lot of pride in,” Ip said. “But when I heard that, I felt like that was really disappointing, since this is a holiday that should be widely celebrated and recognized,” she added.
In her final statement, Ip voiced a sentiment that both Harkavy and Tseng agreed with. “I hope more people can recognize what we were able to do through our collaboration,” she said. “As long as you have a passion or appreciation for something, joining these kinds of cultural appreciation efforts is really beneficial for everyone.”
祝大家中國新年快樂！
