Each winter, USC’s Spatial Sciences Institute invites community members to a Lunar New Year celebration. This year’s event, held Wednesday, included an open house to ring in the Year of the Snake.
An-Min Wu, an assistant professor at the Spatial Sciences Institute and an organizer of the event, said she looks forward to the celebration each year.
“This is actually a winter break time instead of Christmas, and people will go home no matter how far it is to have a big meal with their family and friends,” Wu said. “It’s the biggest and most major festival to celebrate with your family and friends.”
Wu said the institute has students from many different cultural backgrounds, which is why they prioritize social events like these that bring the community together, especially students within the department.
“This event of Lunar New Year is also a major festival for a lot of our international students from Asia,” Wu said. “So it’s important for us to gather together and also make them feel like home, or at least, that their celebration is here, away from home.”
China, Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore are just a few of the countries that mark the arrival of spring and the start of the lunisolar calendar with Lunar New Year, falling on January 29 this year. The first day is different each year based on the position of the moon, and is celebrated for the following 15 days.
Celebrations on campus started Tuesday when the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and USC’s U.S.-China Institute held their third annual Lunar New Year celebration for students, faculty and staff.
Vicki Higgins, USC’s U.S.-China Institute Program Manager, said she wanted the event to be an opportunity for learning about the celebration and to also support international students who don’t have the option to go home or may be hesitant to leave because of fear of not being able to return.
“It’s just been an increasingly difficult time,” Higgins said. “There’s always something, so we just want to celebrate joy when we can.”
Higgins was first introduced to Lunar New Year by students she met while working in the International Program.
“A lot of staff don’t know these cultures until they meet all their students, and this is the time to just enjoy it and experience it,” Higgins said. “Here, you’re surrounded by your peers. You’re surrounded by the students that you know, and you can experience it together.”
Second year graduate student Mia Fong did not see other people outside of her culture acknowledge Lunar New Year before she came to USC.
“I think it’s kind of cool just to see my own, cultural and family values reflected at a place like my school,” Fong said. “It’s just nice to see that uplifted.”
Celebrations will continue in Los Angeles and around campus for the next few weeks. On Saturday, USC’s Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena will host a day full of activities geared toward celebrating the Year of the Snake. While it was originally scheduled to take place in February, the rescheduled 146th annual Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown is now set to take place March 22.