{"id":2295204,"date":"2026-02-23T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2295204"},"modified":"2026-02-23T11:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:47:08","slug":"college-park-celebrates-lunar-new-year-with-lion-dancing-origami-and-live-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/college-park-celebrates-lunar-new-year-with-lion-dancing-origami-and-live-music\/","title":{"rendered":"College Park celebrates Lunar New Year with lion dancing, origami and live music"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Crashing cymbals and brightly colored lion costumes filled College Park City Hall on Saturday as hundreds gathered for the city\u2019s second-annual Lunar New Year celebration.\n<\/p>\n

The event featured traditional Thai music, origami, a Tai Chi demonstration and a performance by Terp Lions \u2014 a lion dance team at this university. Attendees also enjoyed fortune cookies and food samples from Li Chun Cafe.\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

People participate in making crafts during a Lunar New Year celebration at College Park City Hall on Feb. 21, 2026. (Tyler Quattrin\/The Diamondback)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

[College Park families rally to save Chinese immersion at Paint Branch Elementary School<\/a>]<\/strong><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Juniors Michelle Wang and Darian La attended the event to celebrate their heritage and because of its proximity to campus.<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOriginally 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,\u201d Wang, who is Taiwanese, said.\n<\/p>\n

La, who\u2019s Vietnamese, said that celebrating her culture at the event was comforting because she wasn\u2019t able to spend the holiday with her family .\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get to experience or go home this year for Lunar New Year. It kind of came to us,\u201d the information science major said.\n<\/p>\n

She added that she was surprised by the diverse turnout at the city\u2019s festivities, which had many families with young children in attendance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really good to see how many people care about Chinese or Asian culture,\u201d La said.\n<\/p>\n

[UMD Latin American, Caribbean Studies Center celebrates the 100th anniversary of \u00c1ngel Rama\u2019s birth]<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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\u2019 heads and fed them red envelopes containing money, acting as a donation for the performers.\n<\/p>\n

Afterward, families packed the city council chambers for an hour-long performance from the Somapa Thai Dance Company.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A person performs at College Park City Hall for Lunar New Year celebrations on Feb. 21, 2026. (Tyler Quattrin\/The Diamondback)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

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.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so great to see the whole community, not just College Park, come out for this. It\u2019s been a real great turnout,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to future, bigger celebrations, and I hope people get more engaged and learn more of the culture.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Asian American community.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one aspect that we really wanted to bring to a greater audience and showcase to the residents and the community at large,\u201d Quinones said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source dbknews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crashing cymbals and brightly colored lion costumes filled College Park City Hall on Saturday as hundreds gathered for the city\u2019s second-annual Lunar New Year celebration. The event featured traditional Thai music, origami, a Tai Chi demonstration and a performance by Terp Lions \u2014 a lion dance team at this university. Attendees also enjoyed fortune cookies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2295205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2295204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/College-Park-celebrates-Lunar-New-Year-with-lion-dancing-origami.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295206,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295204\/revisions\/2295206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}