M-A’s Intercultural Leadership, Asian Culture Club, and Chinese Culture Club hosted an annual Lunar New Year event after school on the Green on Friday.
Multiple other clubs were in attendance, selling a variety of traditional goods. The Key Club sold tteokbokki, or traditional Korean rice cakes; the Ceramics Club sold Asian-inspired clay pieces, from zodiac animals to molded fortune cookies; the Asian Culture Club sold boba, waffle fries, fried rice, spring rolls; and the Chinese Culture Club offered calligraphy lessons, origami, and lantern-making.
Families, teachers, administrators, coaches, and students gathered together to celebrate the event.
“My favorite part of the event was trying the variety of Asian food and hanging out with everyone,” senior and Ceramics Club president Matilda Kratz said.
This year, the event featured Yuka Yu, a local DJ originally hailing from Taiwan. Yu played all kinds of music, from K-pop to Chinese songs featuring artists such as BTS and Jay Chou.
“My favorite part of the event was playing the Chinese instrument 二胡 (erhu) on stage with my friend. For our performance, we felt prepared this year and I got to enjoy activities that were not offered last year,” junior Milo Kroh, who has attended M-A’s Lunar New Year celebration for the past three years, said.
Junior Viet-Tran Do managed the calligraphy station and played the instrument 古筝 (guzheng) that day. “I enjoyed experiencing the activities that the event had to offer such as calligraphy, paper cutting, and origami. It was great seeing both the students and teachers enjoying Asian culture,” she said.
Students from Intercultural Leadership met every week with the participating clubs to plan how this year’s Lunar New Year Event. “We got pretty stressed at times about how this year’s event will turn out. In the end, things worked out seeing how a good amount of people were able to come and celebrate,” sophomore Intercultural Leadership student and event organizer Linh Nguyen said.
