By Olivia Laramie
On Friday, Feb. 26, CMASS held a Community Building Day on the topic of the Lunar New Year. This event was co-hosted by CMASS and facilitated by the leaders of the Kappa Phi Lambda sorority and the Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 2016 is the year of the monkey so the event was appropriately titled “Time to Monkey Around.”
The presenters began by showing a video clip from ABC's sitcom, “Fresh off the Boat” about the cultural appropriation of the Chinese New Year. They then went into the history of the Chinese New Year.
The traditional Chinese New Year began with the Legend of Nian. Nian was a mythical beast with the body of a bull and the head of a lion. “Guo Nian” meaning “passing of the year” came to mean “Happy New Year”. The Chinese New Year is a celebration of spring and the new growing season. Red, the traditional color of the New Year, symbolizes luck and new fortune
They also gave additional, brief presentations about Tet, the traditional Vietnamese New Year, the Losar/ Tibetan New Year, and the Cambodian New Year. The Vietnamese New Year is celebrated by cleaning and repainting homes, settling old debts and disputes, and setting goals to be kinder and work harder. They also burn incense sticks the night before and bid farewell to their respective family’s kitchen god. It is then believed that this kitchen god goes back to heaven and reports on how the family is doing. Each New Year also relies heavily on visitation of elders and ancestors.
The Tibetan New Year last fifteen days with the first three days consisting of the main celebrations. It is traditionally called Losar, meaning New Year. On the first day of Losar, a beverage called changkol is made from chhaang. The second day of Losar is known as King's Losar (gyalpo losar). Losar can be traced back to the pre-Buddhist Bön period. Every winter a spiritual ceremony was held, in which people offered large quantities of incense to the local spirits and deities.
The Cambodian New Year celebration is three days long. The first day is called Maha Sangkran. Everyone dresses up, lights candles, burns incense and pays their respects to Buddha. The second day is called Vireak Vanabat and is dedicated to helping the poor. The last day, Vara Loeng Sak, consists of a special bathing ceremony for all the Buddha statues and all the local monks.
Chinese food was served and the members of the Kappa Phi Lambda Sorority and the Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity showed participants how to fold and create monkey origami and cut traditional Asian designs from colored papers.