Come celebrate the Lunar New Year with the Foreign Language Club on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017!

The officers will present a PowerPoint presentation about China, Vietnam, and Korea. Members will write messages to wish each other a happy 2017. Students do not have to be enrolled in a foreign language course in order to attend the meeting.

The Lunar New Year is on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017. Countries that celebrate this event follow a lunisolar calendar that abides by the cycles of the moon, which is periodically adjusted to sync with the solar year. This celebration is a time for people to reunite with their family and have a chance to relax from the hard work they did the previous year. Different rituals and traditions are performed during this holiday. For example, in Korea, family members dress in traditional clothing and the children wish their elders a happy new year by doing a traditional bow. Afterwards, the elders reward them with money for the New Year. Vietnam has a similar tradition where the elders give the children a red envelope that contains money, after they do the traditional Tết or New Year greeting.

“I’m excited to see what they will do. They always have such interesting meetings. They used to do Chinese New Year for the most part so I’m excited to see what other cultural significance the Lunar New Year has to other countries,” Cassi Misciagna, a frequent member of the Foreign Language Club, comments.

Moon cakes and hard candies eaten on New Year’s will be distributed after the PowerPoint presentations. The moon cakes may contain peanut oil, so any student with peanut allergies should inform the officers before consuming any food. Members will play games from each of the three countries and prizes, such as Pocky, will be given to the winners.

“I’m looking forward to doing the traditional Vietnamese bamboo dance as one of the games we will be doing during the meeting. Unfortunately, we do not have bamboo sticks so we will borrow metric rulers as a substitute,” says Erika Gonzales, Secretary of the Foreign Language Club.

At the end of the meeting, the Foreign Language Club officers will announce the details about World Cultures Night and the extra-credit opportunities it will provide.