2023 Chinese Lunar New Year – Recap
Five Facets of the Chinese Lunar New Year: Family Reunions, Savory, Festive, Auspicious, Rejuvenating — Glow Cultural Center wrapped up our 15-day celebration with our 3rd Chinese Lunar New Year Cultural Fair & “Lucky Rabbit Brings You Joy” Live Performance
Brooke Yeh | February 16, 2023
Our theme for the Year of the Rabbit focused on traditional Chinese arts & children, with the “Five Facets” of the Chinese Lunar New Year being the focal point of the cultural heritage we wish to hand down to future generations. What are the “Five Facets”? In other words, what do Chinese people think about when they reminisce about the New Year? Family reunions are a big part of the holiday, as well as good food (savory), a festive atmosphere, well wishes for luck and fortune (auspiciousness), and cleaning out old things to make way for the new (rejuvenating).
This year, the Glow Cultural Center organized four cultural workshops as part of our Cultural EXPO series for the Chinese Lunar New Year, namely Chinese Yo-yo Draw Along (Jan 21st), Nursery Rhymes with Changlin Li (Jan 22nd), Dunhuang Dance (Jan 26th), and Classical Chinese Dance (Jan 28th). This year, these events were completely free and open to the public thanks to DYCD Community Council and CACF grants. More than a hundred children from diverse backgrounds participated in culturally immersive activities that allowed them to explore the rich cultural background of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
On February 4th, 2023, Glow Cultural Center wrapped up our 15-day celebration with our 3rd Chinese Lunar New Year Cultural Fair & “Lucky Rabbit Brings You Joy” Live Performance. During the opening ceremony, a Lion Dance troupe livened up the streets of Flushing from Queens Public Library to our location on 41st Avenue, and Congresswoman Grace Meng, New York State Senator John Liu, and City Councilmember Sandra Ung paraded with them. Once inside the Glow Cultural Center, each welcomed the community through well wishes and New Year blessings, along with Flushing Library Director Yang Zeng, Amy Mak Chan from Celestial Love Foundation, GCC Cultural Ambassador Lily Han, and many distinguished guests including our event sponsors. Several Chinese-American community leaders also helped GCC host the “Lucky Draw” with cash prizes ranging in value from $20 to $100 to our community and event participants. In line with our ‘next generation’ theme, all the children were delighted when they received a traditional red envelope ‘HongBao’ gift from GCC’s Fortune God as they joined our Cultural Fair.
Despite being the coldest day of this winter, hundreds of people from many parts of the NY metro area came to our Cultural Fair and enjoyed the very best of Lunar New Year traditions through our various cultural activities and unique giveaways, including exquisite sugar painting pieces, cute dough figurines and tasty ‘Tanghulu’ treats. For a quick recap, SinoVision has a great short video, and we have posted many photos at our Flickr site: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAr27U. The live performance was also a great success, with over 70 kids from 6 different talent schools performing folk dance, Chinese recitals, Chinese Yo-yo, and Chinese traditional attire (Hanfu) runway show. Glow Foundation’s New York Chinese Chorus helped wrap-up the show on a high note with the classic rendition of Lunar New Year song “Gong Xi Gong Xi,” with many audience members joining in.
Glow Cultural Center thanks all GCC sponsors, friends, and community partners that came to support our Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration, and gives a big thumbs-up to every volunteer and staff member who worked hard to make our CLNY event run smoothly and safely. A special shout-out to Red Sun Art Center, Dance for the People, Sense International Academy of Performing Arts, Grant Dance Arts Center, XH Music and Arts, Hanfu NYC, Yang Xiao Di, and Flushing Dance Club for brightening the day with wonderful performances full of cultural meaning, laughter, and vitality. We wish you all a Happy Year of the Water Rabbit!
Click here for the CLNY performance video!
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