Lunar New Year, a significant festival across many Asian cultures, is currently being celebrated around the world. A rich variety of rituals take place during this festival, including the lion dance, lantern viewing, praying for blessings and receiving red pockets. More importantly, this is a festival for connection and reunion, a festival that symbolises prosperity and hope.
Imagine that you are sitting with your family in front of a table with lavish dishes, under the dimly-lit yellow lights of your house. You can’t wait to taste the traditional Lunar New Year foods such as dumplings, longevity noodles, glutinous rice cakes and sweet rice balls, which all possess their unique meanings. The house is filled with red decorations that include lanterns, couplets your parents wrote and paper cuttings you and your siblings made, creating a festive atmosphere. Your grandmother smiles at you and her deep wrinkles appear on her face as she eagerly sends out blessings sitting around the table. Midnight slowly arrives as the noises of firecrackers outside mingles with the laughter inside the room…
In fact, this is the shared and unforgettable memory of Lunar New Year’s Eve for many international students and other students of Asian heritage. Among them, this may be the third consecutive year in which they have not been back to their home country and visited their family members after the pandemic outbreak. Therefore, at Carey, a supportive community that values cultural diversity and embraces inclusivity, we celebrate Lunar New Year with a mission to create a sense of belonging for everyone.
We believe that the 2022 Lunar New Year exceeds its simple definition of a holiday. It is instead a bridge that connects families and friends, a signal for a fresh start after the tumultuous past two years, and a celebration for all our resilient attempts to overcome the various challenges. Hence on last Friday, Carey students across Junior, Middle and Senior School came together to continue this tradition of celebrating Lunar New Year with a lion dance show in the festively decorated school. We hope that everyone shared the joy and had the chance to experience the sense of inclusivity through this Carey tradition.
Cathy and Eric
CLOSA Student Captains
