Crashing cymbals and brightly colored lion costumes filled College Park City Hall on Saturday as hundreds gathered for the city’s second-annual Lunar New Year celebration.
The event featured traditional Thai music, origami, a Tai Chi demonstration and a performance by Terp Lions — a lion dance team at this university. Attendees also enjoyed fortune cookies and food samples from Li Chun Cafe.
The Lunar New Year festival started on Tuesday and continues through March 3. The holiday corresponds with the first new moon of the lunar calendar, and is widely celebrated in many Asian cultures.
The holiday is centered around 12 zodiac animals that rotate yearly and are paired with one of five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal or water. This year marks the Year of the Fire Horse, which is traditionally associated with hard work, bravery and resilience, according to the Smithsonian Institution.
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Juniors Michelle Wang and Darian La attended the event to celebrate their heritage and because of its proximity to campus.
Wang, an environmental policy and data science major, said when she saw Terp Lions practicing on McKeldin Mall, she looked up their Instagram and saw they were performing at City Hall.
“Originally I was thinking about going to D.C. to see the Chinatown parade, but since the [Terp] Lions were already performing here, I thought it was super convenient,” Wang, who is Taiwanese, said.
La, who’s Vietnamese, said that celebrating her culture at the event was comforting because she wasn’t able to spend the holiday with her family .
“We didn’t get to experience or go home this year for Lunar New Year. It kind of came to us,” the information science major said.
She added that she was surprised by the diverse turnout at the city’s festivities, which had many families with young children in attendance.
“It was really good to see how many people care about Chinese or Asian culture,” La said.
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The lion dance drew the largest crowd of the day, with attendees filling the lobby to watch two lion dancers move through the audience to the beat of drums and cymbals. For good luck, several children rubbed the lions’ heads and fed them red envelopes containing money, acting as a donation for the performers.
Afterward, families packed the city council chambers for an hour-long performance from the Somapa Thai Dance Company.
District 1 council member Alan Yen Mui Hew, who is half Chinese, said he grew up celebrating Lunar New Year with his family and was proud to see the city embrace different cultures.
“It’s just so great to see the whole community, not just College Park, come out for this. It’s been a real great turnout,” he said. “I look forward to future, bigger celebrations, and I hope people get more engaged and learn more of the culture.”
College Park communications and events manager Ryna Quinones emphasized the Lunar New Year celebration is a great way to highlight the traditions and history of the city’s Asian American community.
“This is one aspect that we really wanted to bring to a greater audience and showcase to the residents and the community at large,” Quinones said.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source dbknews.com ’
