4 minute read
新年快乐
ORHS hosts its first Chinese New Year Celebration.
Good food, music, and even a lion dance are all the ingredients of making a great event. With an attendance of nearly 300 and raising $800 for the Oyster River High School (ORHS) Mandarin program, Mandarin teacher Lisa Fan considers the Lunar New Year community day a success.
However, it wasn’t all that easy. Although the event was very popular with its food and displays, it took a lot of coordination from Fan and many other teachers, parents, students, and friends to really pull this celebration together and display the essence of Chinese culture.
As soon as she started teaching, Fan has always been looking for ways create community events, which was a challenge. Although Oyster River is one of the few school districts that teach Mandarin (it is also taught at the middle school), it’s not very popular among students. “I think many people don’t really know the culture, or people think [Mandarin] is a very hard language,” she said. “I wanted to do a lot of community outreaches to expand the program. That’s my ultimate goal.”
That’s when she decided to create a celebration focused on food. “I always felt like food brings people together. Also, being a native Chinese, I don’t find any authentic Chinese food here,” continued Fan. Along with her network of friends, they created a majority of what was served at the festival.
At first, the community reception of a Lunar New Year event had an underwhelming response. “The first time I posted [on social media], there was very little feedback. So, I always had this expectation because this is our first year, we’re going to start slowly, maybe just have a small group to get together and share food,” she said. “Eventually, most of the registrations came in the last three or four days. It really exceeded my expectations.”
The event occurred on Saturday, February 10th, the day of the Lunar New Year and the beginning of the year of the Dragon. Running from 10 to 2 in the ORHS cafeteria, it included various food stalls like mochi, dumplings, spring rolls, rice cakes, fried rice, and other Chinese dishes.
Later, there were students performing Chinese Allegro and even a dragon dance to conclude the event. There were many more showcases, like arts and crafts, calligraphy, and other displays. “It was so nice to see so many people in one place. There aren’t that many communities here, and it’s good to see everyone having a good time,” said Jamie Gehling (‘25), one of Fan’s Mandarin 5 students.
English teachers Jake Baver and Alexander Eustace came into the event expecting something small. “A lot of people were making food and selling things at a scale I really was not expecting. [The Mandarin teachers] really put on the work to make something that people actually wanted to be a part of,” said Eustace.
However, the main thing these Writing Center dwellers were here for was the Lion dance. “What mattered most was seeing the lion dance,” said Baver. “I thought the lion dance would be lions. Well, apparently not according to the Chinese culture. I mean, don’t get me wrong. If that’s what a lion looks like, that’s what a lion looks like.”
In the future, Fan hopes to not only continue this tradition, but also include New Year celebrations of other cultures as well. “My original thought was to do Lunar New Year, because China is not the only country that celebrates ‘Chinese New Year:’ People from Vietnam, Japan, and Korea also celebrate Lunar New Year. This time, only the Chinese community responded, but in the future if more people want to join, it will be more international,” she explained.
Despite it being Fan’s first time hosting this event, she felt like she’s changed many people’s views on the Mandarin program. “When I joined the school, I had very mixed feedback from the students and the community, saying that the program is declining. Now, I love the fact that people actually care.”
written by JAMES LI
