Omsk State Agrarian University students studied traditions and customs of the Chinese Lantern Festival

On February 25, the Intercultural Student Center held an online meeting with students of Northwest Agriculture & Forestry University (Yangling, China). The meeting was dedicated to the Chinese folk festival "Spring Festival", also known as Chinese New Year. Traditionally, during the celebration of the Spring Festival on the 15th day of the 1st month of the lunar calendar, China celebrates the "Lantern Festival".

The Lantern Festival is a lush and colorful event, accompanied by fireworks, national dances, bright red and yellow accessories, and launch of Chinese lanterns flying into the sky, with wishes of health and well-being in the coming year written on them. Students of the NWAFU told about this amazing holiday, its origins and the national traditions associated with it.

Our student who attended the meeting learned that the Chinese New Year is an ancient and very significant holiday for all Chinese people, and the  Lantern Festival is the main event of the entire Spring Festival. According to a legend, countless lanterns and fireworks are launched throughout China on this day to scare away misfortunes and attract good luck in the coming year.

Chinese students also described their traditional cuisine. For the Spring Festival, they serve meat rolls, dumplings and noodles, and each of these meals has some symbolic meaning. So the rolls resemble gold bars in shape and color, and traditional Chinese dumplings - "jiaozi" look like to silver bars used in China before the monetary reform introduced in XX century.  Both meals symbolize wealth and prosperity, and noodles symbolize health and longevity.

At the end of the meeting, Aset Madiev, a 2020 Chinese Governmental scholarship holder and an Omsk SAU graduate, held a master class in writing Chinese hieroglyphs. Also, participants tried to create Chinese lanterns.  

"The topic of the meeting was one of the most interesting Chinese holidays - the Lantern Festival. Foreign students spoke in English about their traditions and legends. It was very interesting to hear about the history and features of the festival. I know that many of us made a conclusion that you shouldn't be afraid of speaking a foreign language. As for me, I decided to begin learning English. I'm grateful to the Omsk SAU International Relations Department for hosting that nice event. I wish you to develop and become better with each new day!"

This meeting was very informative for me. Chinese students told how their people celebrate one of their most important holidays, which is the Chinese New Year. They call it the Spring Festival and celebrate it with their family. The students also explained the background of the holiday, and it turned out that all the Christmas decorations, firecrackers and fireworks were used to scare off the mythical monster Nian who attacked the ancient Chinese settlements. After the meeting, we had a master class on how to make Chinese lanterns, and a guy who applied for the Chinese Government Scholarship showed us how to write hieroglyphs. That's why next New Year while launching fireworks I'll be able to show my knowledge to my relatives by telling them a legend about Nian, or, for example, suddenly start writing something in Chinese.