Tuesday’s Lunar New Year can be an opportunity to spend time with family and friends, experience and connect to cultural history, and bring luck. For some students on campus, the chance to experience the holiday’s festivities comes on Feb. 9 at the Lunar New Year Festival at the Frisco Ranch area.
“I wanted to enjoy a Lunar New Year celebration,” junior Cindy Trinh said. “I first heard about this festival through a flyer that was being distributed at my work [and] I saw that it was being held at 99 Ranch, which is close to my work.”
The night-market themed festival has several different attractions, including lion dances, a fashion show, and the appearance of a calligraphy artist.
“I’ve always heard stories about my mom’s experiences in China [last year at the mid-autumn festival] with the night market, especially with how she described it as lively and bustling,” sophomore Nicole Dsilva said. “I’m looking forward to an experience like hers.”
Though Trinh looks forward to watching the lion dance and visiting the local food vendors with her friends, she’s also looking skyward.
“I am worried it’s going to rain, but also, since 99 Ranch is already busy, it might be very overcrowded,” Trinh said.
Among those planning to attend, high hopes have been raised that the festival will be more open to students from other cultural backgrounds.
“I’ve never attended [this specific festival] before,” Dsilva said. “When my friend sent me the flyer, I was excited because I’ve never attended a night-market themed event before. With [another] festival I’ve been to, it had good food, but everything was in Chinese, so it wasn’t very non-Chinese friendly.”
Being held almost every year since the development of the Frisco Ranch area itself, the fourth annual festival isn’t only a chance to be immersed in cultural traditions and food. In the eyes of students such as Dsilva, it can be an enriching experience to support their learning.
“I’m looking forward to trying the food; I can’t wait to introduce my friends to my favorite foods,” Dsilva said. “[But] as a Chinese 2 student, I also hope to practice my Chinese.”
In the end, all the traditions of Lunar New Year can be connected together by one word, one purpose: community.
“I think going with your family will help you learn about new cultures in the area,” freshman Jenna Kim said. “And if you already celebrate Chinese New Year, you can go there to meet new people and create that sense of community around you.”
