Story by Sonya Shimpock
Staff Writer
Photo by Shin-Hye (Rachel) Choi
Staff Photographer
The SPHS Asian Pacific Islander Student Union (APISU) hosted a Lunar New Year event on Thursday, Feb. 22 on the Tiger Patio during lunch.
Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and is the beginning of the new year on the Lunisolar calendar. Celebrations, while different for every culture, usually emphasize prosperity, abundance and togetherness.
The event took place during lunch and consisted of a multitude of booths that showcased some of the different aspects of Lunar New Year through activities and food.
Students could create their own pieces of calligraphy art at one booth with the provided brushes and ink, which was set up in small plastic cups at the front of the table.
“The calligraphy was very interesting. I wrote the letter “luck in Chinese, and I had a super fun time with my friends. I love how this culture is being spread,” sophomore Diana Du said.
Students were also able to try their hand at Mahjong, a tile-based game developed in 19th century China, at a different booth.
Food was featured at the event as well — dumplings, sticky rice, and brown-butter white chocolate matcha cookies were available for sale.
“I thought it was cool to see the integration of cultural foods into the Lunar New Year event, such as the sticky rice and matcha cookies.” sophomore Isabelle Huang said.
Another booth was set up with a chromebook displaying instructions on how to create various objects with origami — folded dragons and cranes in the pastel-colored paper were scattered across the table.
“It’s so heartwarming to see people come together to celebrate such a special holiday like Lunar New Year,” APISU president Nadia Cho said. “I’m really proud of all the APISU club ambassadors and how hard they worked to put the event together. It’s so exciting to see what we can do next as a club.”
