February 13, 2015 - Chinese New Year Celebration

Chinese New Year Celebration

The Confucius Institute (CI), in conjunction with Gulf Coast Chinese American Association and Chinese Students Association at UWF, hosted the Chinese New Year Celebration in the Conference Center Ballrooms on February 13th. There was spectacular turnout with more than 400 people that joined and enjoyed the celebration.

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is the most important festival in China. The festival is a major holiday for family reunions. Chinese people traditionally have a large family dinner and watch celebratory performances on TV on the New Year’s Eve – the last day of the Chinese lunar calendar. Chinese New Year honors traditions, and there are a myriad of custom rituals and myths about the festival. One such tradition is the cleansing of the family home, a custom that stands for sweeping away ill-fortune and making way for good luck. In addition, people decorate doors and windows with red paper-cut-outs and couplets that have themes such as good fortune, happiness, wealth, and longevity.

The festival is celebrated by Chinese all over the world.

To introduce the meaningful cultural Chinese New Year to UWF students and the local community in Pensacola, CI invited them to the event celebration. With the opening remarks from the Vice Provost Dr. George Ellenberg and the New Year greetings from CI Deputy Director

Prof. Youbin Zhang, the gala highlighted a variety of marvelous performances.

The Chinese Students Association opened with two choral singing performances with participants from mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan, reflecting the multicultural engagement underlying the event. The two delightful and popular opening songs brought on joyful atmosphere.

Students from the CI language course opened the second act by singing the Chinese song, “Welcome to Beijing” (a theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games) and spoke in Chinese to express their joyful experiences in learning the language and in expecting the chance for summer trip to China. Following this, a talented belly dancer performed a solo performance that wowed the audience. Succeeding her dance routine, came a series of performances that exhibited traditional Chinese arts, such as martial arts, Chinese painting, and Chinese calligraphy. CI Director Dr. Kuiyuan Li wrote the Chinese character “Yang” (goat in English, representing the year of 2015 in China’s lunar calendar) and provided the audience with an amusing account of the goat’s connotation, which resulted in lively laughter from the audience. The last, and most anticipated performance came with Director Xiaolun Chen’s solo singing of five unique featured songs, “Some Enchanted Evenings”, “Great Wall is Always on My Mind” and three others which were popularly known to both American and Chinese people.

With the conclusion of performances, the CI served the audience with delicious Chinese food and conducted a playful raffle draw that engaged all of the audience. A lot of the audience graciously received prizes. They were thrilled to receive traditional Chinese gifts, such as a Chinese knot and lantern.

The audience said the 2015 Chinese New Year celebration, organized by the CI, was a refreshing and enjoyable experience for them to participate in. Throughout the event, they were presented with opportunities to witness firsthand traditional Chinese performances and arts and grow a greater appreciation of Chinese culture.

Opening remarks by Vice Provost Dr. George Ellenberg Choral

Performance by the Chinese Student Association

Chinese Language class’s singing of “Welcome to Beijing”

Belly Dance performance, by Lin Mo

Chinese Calligraphy Demonstration, by Dr. Kuiyuan Li

Spectacular turnout for the event