<lamations of “Xin Nian Kuaile” or “Happy New Year” could be heard Friday night as students gathered to celebrate the beginning of the Lunar New Year. The event, put on by the Chinese club, invited students to learn how to make dumplings and then enjoy them to celebrate.
“I happened to be in the room when they began to set up the event, and they invited me to join them,” said Morgan Marks ’14. “I’ve been having a great time.”
Marks echoed the sentiments of many who were boisterously enjoying the event.
Chinese New Year is one of the major Chinese holidays, and is traditionally celebrated by family and friends gathering to enjoy large feasts and setting off firecrackers. Many of the Chinese New Year traditions relate to food, and eating certain foods promotes good luck and fortune in the coming year.
“The family gets together and cooks special foods,” said Yawen Chen ’15 of her celebrations back home in Nanjing, China. “Every year we have dumplings.”
Dumplings took center stage at the Carleton Chinese New Years celebration, as an estimated 120 students gathered and taught each other how to properly wrap the dumplings.
“It’s an art,” said Madeleine Carot ’14 about wrapping the dumplings. “I’m really excited to eat them.”
The celebration left very few with empty stomachs.
“We celebrate this way every year,” said Scarlett Tse ’12, who helped run the event, as she explained the origins of the Carleton celebration. Tse estimates that 1,000 dumplings were wrapped and then eaten within the three-hour time span in which the event occurred.
Friday’s Chinese New Year celebration was just the beginning of the Lunar New Year celebrations at Carleton. On Feb. 3, ASIA is hosting a Lunar New Year celebration in the Great Hall from 5 to 7 p.m. Spots can be reserved on the Office of Intercultural and International Life website.