Students Mark Lunar New Year with Lanterns

Working with world language instructor Cheryl Payne, each student decorated a paper lantern with an auspicious four-character idiom alluding to the Year of the Snake or a four-character idiom containing Lunar New Year wish. 

Lantern Festival occurs on the 15th (and last) day of the Lunar New Year celebration, when the moon is full. On Jan. 29, 2025, the former Year of the Dragon became the Year of the Snake. Lantern Festival followed on Feb. 12. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles attached to the lanterns.
 

Every Chinese holiday or festival has at least one special food associated with it, and the Lantern Festival is no exception. For the Lantern Festival, people eat glutinous rice balls typically filled with sweet red bean paste, sesame paste, or peanut butter paste. 

Students learned that these sweet glutinous rice balls are called 汤圆 (tāngyuán) in Southern China and Taiwan, and 元宵 (yuánxiāo) in Northern China; hence, the Chinese name for the Lantern Festival is 元宵节 (yuánxiāo jié), or "Glutinous Rice Ball Festival!”