Chinese New Year activity welcomes the
Also known as Chinese New Year – the most important holiday in China – the Chinese Spring Festival Party filled the Logan LDS Institute building Friday night.
The event was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., yet by a quarter after, the already expanding crowd of party-goers were invited to get a head start and begin eating the buffet of authentic Chinese food. As 6:45 crept around, many were quickly finished with their first plate, and looking to nudge in for seconds.
“The food is great here,” Ashley Wall, a junior at Utah State University, said. ” I came to this festival two years ago and knew I was in for a treat.”
Soon after the feast began, the masses quickly out-ate what was anticipated.
The China King Buffet, a local Chinese Restaurant in Logan, was soon contacted to haul more to the party, as even more people showed, ready to try their tastebuds to the Chinese cuisine. Luckily, the recovery was prompt and those waiting were quickly rewarded.
Of course, the Chinese New Year is about more than the food.
By 8 p.m. as appetites began to fade, the Chinese Student and Scholar Association put into motion a detailed schedule of rich Chinese dance themes and songs for the audience’s enjoyment.
Usually, after each presentation, gift certificates to local restaurants were awarded to those with winning raffle tickets, and at the near-end of the festival a grand prize DVD player and TV were given to two fortunate ticket holders.
The program was also choreographed to relate to many of the locals in the audience. John Micheal Montgomery’s “I Swear” was sung by three performers, Zhu Yuexia, an doctorial student in economics, and Jeffrey Wu, a grad student in food science and Sheila Lai also studying her PH.D in economics. They were all happy to sing in the program.
“We didn’t think this song would be too hard for us to sing,” Zhu said.
“We wanted the people in Logan to feel that our culture shouldn’t feel foreign to them,” Wu said. “In Utah there is a [small] population of Chinese. We wanted to help others feel enjoyment from our culture, but also we wanted to show others that we enjoy their culture too.”
One of the highlights to this notion was when Lai joined forces with the band ” Smooth Like James” to write a song with Chinese and English lyrics.
“We started about a month ago on it,” Lia said. “My good friend Joshua Law, who’s the drummer, asked me if I would like to do a song with them. We practiced every Tuesday and Thursday for one to two hours and it was so much fun. I think everyone really enjoyed it.”
During the show, many in the crowd held their cell phones high in the air, waving a fluorescent glow with the rhythm of the song.
“I was grateful for the opportunity to emcee in this program tonight,” Chip Brockbank, a sophomore at USU from Price, Utah, said.
“When Liu Enzhong, the president of CSSA, approached me with the position, I was more than happy. I grew a love for the Chinese Culture as I spent two years in Taiwan and told him I wanted to help out any way I could. I think everyone was happy with how everything turned out.”
Just as quickly as it had all started, the events of the Chinese New Year ended once again – at least for another year.
-bretpmorely@cc.usu.edu