Lunar New Year event provides cultural education and activities

St.+Anthonys+Lion+and+Dragon+Dance+team+performs+at+the+Lunar+New+Year%3A+Year+of+The+Tiger+Celebration+on+Tuesday%2C+Feb.+1st%2C+2022.

Thy Vo

St. Anthony’s Lion and Dragon Dance team performs at the Lunar New Year: Year of The Tiger Celebration on Tuesday, Feb. 1st, 2022.

Tuesday, Feb. 1 marked the first official day for Lunar New Year celebrations around the world. In honor of the holiday, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion hosted a Lunar New Year Celebration at the Rhatigan Student Center filled with dancing, information and activities.

KVersity dancer Jennifer Dang performs at the Lunar New Year: Year of the Tiger Celebration on Tuesday, Feb. 1st, 2022. (Thy Vo/ The Sunflower)

These activities included making paper lanterns, calligraphy, learning about your horoscope from the office of International Services and a selfie booth. 

According to Amanda Phanivong from ODI, the purpose of the event is to teach more people about Lunar New Year as well as celebrating the New Year as a whole. 

“We love getting more people involved in different cultures and teaching them about celebrations of different cultures indefinitely,” Phanivong said

Information given out at the event included information about cultural foods and gifts that are traditional for the Lunar New Year celebration such as bánh tét, a Vietnamese cake, and mandarin oranges. 

This year, the celebration was a first for some. Suzin Oh, originally from Korea, said that this was her first year celebrating the Lunar New Year as a whole. 

“Back home, we only celebrated like January 1st. So this is actually like my first time celebrating,” she said.  “My family is not that traditional so this is pretty cool.” 

The event also included some performances by WSU’s KVersity and the St. Anthony’s Dragon Dance team.  

KVersity is a dance group at WSU that has been around for three years. The group mainly focuses on Kpop. The group also focuses on other genres such as hip hop. 

This year was WSU Freshman Sarah Nuse’s first year dancing with KVersity, but this is not the first event she’s danced at.

“This year we had an event at Wichita Asian fest where we performed,” Nuse said. “This was our second one this year and then we have one this weekend at K-State so there’s some more coming this semester.”