Hornet's Nest | Volume 5 | Issue 3 | December 17, 2019

HORNET’S NEST Proctor Academy | December 17, 2019| Vol. 5 | Issue 3

Special New Year’s Edition

How are Proctor students celebrating around the world?

Image: dreamstime.com

Lunar New Year in Shanghai

Lunar New Year in Hong Kong

“We have a large family gathering usually at a restaurant… The elderly give red envelopes with lots of money to the younger members of the family… Later at night people shoot off fireworks to “scare off evil beings” to not have bad luck, but fireworks aren’t allowed in Shanghai anymore because of pollution.”

- Michael Sun

“The lunar new year has its name due to the scheduling of the lunar calendar, and thus the year starts later in a traditional Chinese fashion. A large feast with family is always the highlight of the holiday, as it is always a delicious time of good camaraderie and the warming blazes of home. For many Chinese families and my own included, it is a time to see relatives from far and wide across the globe for a moment of reflective celebration. In addition, a big “spring cleaning” takes place to mark the dawn of a new season, and a new beginning that not only starts with a clean house but with a refreshed mindset as well to calm the February blues! Of course, one of the best parts about Chinese New Year is traditional home-cooking at its very best. This includes my favorite stir fry E-fu noodles, or the “longevity noodle” wherein one must not cut apart the noodle, as it represents bad fortune and it could sap the longevity from lucky individuals!”

- Tristan Auyang

By Jonah McAloon Michael Sun 2020

By Jonah McAloon Tristan Auyang 2020

New Year in South Sudan

By Massimo Thauvette James Kamich 2020

“Usually we go to church and then come back home to eat with our family and friends or neighbors…we eat some traditional foods, like chappati. We have a big parade in the streets to celebrate the occasion, there’s a certain group that represents each church wearing all kinds of uniforms.” - James Kamich

James (center)

Tristan (left)

Fireworks By The River

By Geoffrey Herring Birgit Preuss 2021

“The big thing in Guatemala is fireworks, obviously New Year’s has fireworks, but it is different here. Every house has fireworks and when midnight hits, the sky lights up. We will usually head down to the river to watch the fireworks because they launch them over the bridge and it is very exciting to see. Then we will have a big dinner with the whole family.” - Birgit Preuss

It’s Not Really New Year’s Over Here, It’s Spring Festival

New Year’s Togetherness in Saint John, New Brunswick

By Michael Gilerman Jonah McAloon 2020

“When I was younger I used to spend New Year’s with family. We would have dinner at home and watch the ball drop on TV. The city I live in also has a countdown with live music and entertainment. Because Saint John is on a super steep hill, a lot of the time after midnight people will go sledding and race down the streets which are closed off if there is a lot of snow.” - Jonah McAloon

Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Montreal

By Geoffrey Herring Arthur Tang 2021

By Ferdinando Benetton Massimo Thauvette 2021

“January 1st is not our traditional Spring Festival, it’s called Chinese New Year, but our Spring Festival is in February. Spring Festival is the beginning of the new year and during that time all the schools will have a break and adults don’t have to go to work. It’s like a reunion. Everyone gathers together, eats a bunch of food, and watches fireworks. We also give each other red envelopes. The elders give children red envelopes with money inside. We watch fireworks because there was a monster called Tiao Tia, it’s a mystery, and in order to prevent Tiao Tia from attacking the villages, people would use fireworks to frighten the monster off.”

- Arthur Tang

“Back home we usually spend New Year’s with our friends and family, we have a whole party until the countdown, eat a big meal including tiramisu, and then once it hits the new year we ‘cheers’ our glasses of champagne and wish each other good health.”

- Massimo Thauvette

Welcoming The New Year In Juneau, Alaska

By Michael Gilerman Jaime Hort 2021

“For dinner we make foods that are bright in color because it’s the darkest week of the year. We make things like squash lasagna, pumpkin biscuits, green peas, broccoli and other colorful foods. On New Year’s Eve, my fam goes over to a family friend’s house with a lot of my old hockey teammates from when I was younger and we play games, watch movies, play street hockey. Things like that.

On New Year’s Day we all go play hockey on a lake near the glacier and just have fun.” - Jaime Hort

Image: google

Skiing (From Mexico) into the New Year

By Sloane Wightman Kass Reynoso 2023

“Every year my family gets together and we usually go skiing somewhere. We make a turkey just like on thanksgiving. We have this tradition where we go around the Image: Chimu Blog table eating grapes as you say your goals and what you want to accomplish in the next year. We say all the things we have done throughout the year. Every year both sides of my family get together.” - Kass Reynoso

Image: New China website

New Year’s in China

By Sloane Wightman Dylan Teng 2022

Image: chipandco.com

“In China, we have a Chinese New Year’s celebration. We usually celebrate it before the actual Chinese new year because in China we have two calendars, the traditional and the western calendar.

We usually follow the western calendar but we use the traditional calendar for our traditional holidays. We eat together like thanksgiving or Christmas but the food is very different from the different provinces in China. We will have rice cakes as our last dish. We believe that we should celebrate a god for giving us the food we eat.

Before the dinner starts, we burn paper to represent the spirits of our ancestors. We burn the paper as a way to send money to them in heaven.” - Dylan Teng

Hockey & the New Year in California

By Sean Slick Michael Gilerman 2021

“My New Year’s is pretty simple.

Usually, the night before my family comes over for dinner, but there’s a twist. We eat, drink, talk, and have a great time. But we haven’t followed tradition for the past few years. I usually have a hockey tournament around New Year’s Day, so I end up taking an early flight on January 1st. This means on New Year’s Eve I don’t stay up until 12 AM, I usually go to bed around 10:30. The next morning I end up waking up around 2 to 3 AM for my flight.”

- Michael Gilerman

A New Year’s in Georgia

By Sean Slick Alex Keskintepe 2022

“Some specific traditions in my family is we cook and make Russian and Turkish foods and desserts to take over to neighbors’ houses.

Traditionally, my parents like to drink Turkish liquor for the new year. We celebrate New Year’s in our living room surrounded by our closest friends and family, wanting to start the New year off with people we care for and care for us.” - Alex Keskintepe

Image: AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

Senegal New Year

By Massimo Thauvette Abdou “Pape” Diop 2022 “In Senegal, when we celebrate, the oldest in the family kills chickens and sheep, so that we can eat like kings. We all gather in the dining room to eat together. We also buy firecrackers to help us celebrate.”

- “Pape” Diop

Alex (right)

Canadian New Year

By Jack Fedele Elijah Sochaczevski ‘22

“For my New Year’s Holiday, I head down to my grandparent’s house, with all the cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone.

At 12 when it’s New Year’s, my grandfather once set up shots of maple syrup and we all went shot for shot, until we felt sick.”

- Elijah Sochaczevski Bingh (left) & Cooper

Hanoi New Year

By Cooper Rice Binh Dao 2021

“At home in Vietnam on Chinese New Year also known as Tet, my family and I all gather for a big dinner, It’s almost like an American thanksgiving. After dinner, everyone goes to the balcony to watch the fireworks that would go off at exactly midnight, after that the adults would have a drinking celebration, but the kids would sit and eat candy to celebrate. Everyone would leave around two AM when everything was done. Also the streets of Vietnam are really rowdy and loud, people get traditionally dressed up and there is food everywhere.” - Binh Dao

New Year’s All Over the World Emily Catterson Mira Maroni 23’

Image: alamystockphoto

With Family in Vietnam

By Cooper Rice Minh Nyguen 2021

“During the Vietnamese New Year, my entire family and I usually spend the whole day together at our grandparent’s house, celebrating the upcoming year. We spend hours hanging long red banners and drawings of old traditional Vietnamese letters around the house. Not only that, but we also prepare up to ten different types of traditional food like steamed ground pork, red sticky rice, boiled chicken, and many more.” - Minh Nyguen

“I would say our family has our own (culture)... Every year we’re with my mom’s parents, so my grandparents... We always spend New Year’s with them and we always go to different countries. Like last New Year’s, we went to Ethiopia, the year before that, we went to the U.A.E, (and) we most commonly go to the U.A.E. for New Year’s (but) this year is Argentina... my mom identifies as a Muslim and my Dad identifies as a Christian... so over New Year’s I have to go to a mosque and practice prayers with my grandparents. We (also) have fireworks... but that’s gone wrong twice, I had a firework get caught in my hair. Hahah. So yeah, we usually just spend New Year’s with my mom’s side of my family.” - Mira Maroni