Students at Emory recreated the Chinese Spring Festival
Members of CSA at Emory recreated it on campus
Spring Festival is the first day in the lunar calendar. According to a Chinese tale, a long time ago there was a monster called ‘Nian’ who liked eating people. To drive away this monster, an old man thought of hanging red lanterns and posting red couplets on the door because Nian hated the color red.
To celebrate the success of expelling Nian, people set that day as the Spring Festival. However, the meaning of Spring Festival has evolved over time. Nowadays in China, people have a two-week long break to celebrate the passing of the cold winter and the arrival of spring (still incorporating red lanterns and couplets, of course).
Celebrating Spring Festival has long been a Chinese tradition, and Chinese students have spread this culture to American campuses, too. Recently, students from CSA (Chinese Student Association) brought these traditions — events, decorations, and food — to our campus in the Spring Gala, but they also made some changes.
Food
During the event, we prepared a bunch of snacks including shrimp dumplings, sweet dumplings and cha siu pao (pork bun). For the main course, CSA members wrote a detailed recipe for chicken braised in soy sauce and egg fried rice. We also made some traditional Chinese desserts: egg tarts and Beijing style syrup fruit.
For an actual Spring Festival dinner, however, we prepare food which usually takes more time to make. One famous dish a Shanghai family will make is called stewed pork with brown sauce. This dish usually requires four to five hours to make, including three main steps: boiling raw pork, stewing the pork with soy sauce and other spices, and finally condensing the juice.
The last step always takes more than an hour and the cook has to stay by the pot to make sure the pork doesn’t get burned.
Performances
The CSA chosen name for the on-campus event — Spring Gala — is derived from a TV show that’s played on a Chinese TV channel every year during the Spring Festival since 1983. Watching “Spring Gala” has become a conventionalized activity for every Chinese family — it’s a good time for the whole family to gather together and enjoy one another’s company. CSA held Spring Gala in the school’s dining hall with a similar purpose: gathering students from all over campus to celebrate Spring Festival, enjoy Chinese food and share the happiness with friends.
We performed Dragon Dance and Lion Dance for our Spring Gala. Dragon Dance is performed by CSA members: we held sticks that supported the body of the dragon, then we swayed the sticks to make the dragon move. We invited the Lion Dance team to perform, too.
In China, Dragon Dance and Lion Dance are two popular performances. Lion Dance usually requires many skills and a lot of practice. The climax of the performance is reached when one performer jumps onto another man’s shoulders while still in the lion costume.
Decorations
The night before Spring Gala, we decorated the whole dining hall with red lanterns and couplets. We also prepared ink and Chinese writing brushes for students to write ‘Fu’, a Chinese letter which means ‘lucky’, on couplets.
During an actual Spring Festival, basically we have the same kind of decorations. The only difference is that people buy a lot of candies and nuts, called ‘Nian Huo’, which means food specifically for Spring Festival.
We buy these candies and nuts early, and put them into bowls and dishes. We can’t eat them until Spring Festival, so they serve as decoration until then.