Chinese New Year on the Forty Acres
Natalie Vong from Macau, with her dish, a Chinese Dessert.
This will be the second year in a row that the HSU ISF has organized a food festival to raise funds for its activities. According to Roshan Guharajan, the current ISF President and biology student from Malaysia, “The reason we decided to organize this event to coincide with the Chinese New Year is mainly because we have a large group of Chinese students within the ISF. It is rather unfortunate for these students who have to miss out on this celebration due to the fact that it is not a recognized American holiday. Thus, we thought the idea of having an official Chinese New Year celebration on campus this year would be a great opportunity to let these students enjoy a tradition that is dear to their hearts, as well as sharing it with the student body in order to expose them to a foreign culture.”
Indeed the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is by far the most important of all the traditional Chinese holidays. It is celebrated annually on the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar, thus, it is sometimes called the “Lunar New Year” by English-Speakers. This year, the Chinese will be celebrating the year of the Tiger, the third of the twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac. Traditionally, the Chinese New Year celebrations are marked by large family reunions, where relatives who are abroad travel home to spend it with their family members. The Reunion dinner, or “Chu Xi”, occurs on the eve of the first day of New Year’s. During this dinner, families gather and sit down around a round table to enjoy a meal together. The round table symbolizes the completeness of the family as well as the completion o f another year. However, for these international students, they do not have the opportunity to be with their families who are back in their hometowns since the Chinese New Year always occurs in early and middle February, when the school semester is already in full-swing. Roshan notes, “Some of these students have not been home to be with their families in years and it is during this time of the year that they are usually the most homesick for the warmth of their relatives, in addition to the many traditional Chinese dishes that mark the celebration.”
Fortunately, the HSU ISF has stepped in with an attempt to bring a little piece of home to these international students who have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of higher education. The culmination of this event represents the continual growth of the international student population at Hardin-Simmons University, as well as many other Eli 360 Partner Universities. It is our sincere hope that these international students will continue to grow intellectually, spiritually and professionally throughout the course of their time here. The staff of Eli 360 would like to take this opportunity to wish all the Chinese students at the various partner universities, “Gong Xi Fa Cai! (Wishing you prosperity in the coming year) May all of you have a wonderful year of growth and continual success”.
Student and faculty in line at last year's ISF Food Fest.
*The event is open to all and will be at the Hardin-Simmons University Johnson Building Multipurpose Room. There is a $5.00 charge for the buffet. Donations are also welcome.
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