Marquette’s Chinese Culture and Charity Club is making a resurgence on campus with their kickoff event to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The event was held on Feb. 27 in the Lalumiere Language Hall. It was open to all Marquette students and everyone was invited to join the celebration which lasted from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The Chinese Culture and Charity Club previously existed on campus but went away during the COVID-19 Pandemic. This year it was restarted with help from their new president, Kong Cheng Her, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.
This year, Lunar New Year began on Saturday Feb 10. Lunar New Year celebrations usually last around 15 days.
In order to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the club provided a variety of traditional Chinese foods, played informative videos that explained some parts of the Lunar New Year and had entertainment like calligraphy practice and a competition to see who could use chopsticks the best.
The Lunar New Year is a celebration of the new year in accordance with the lunar calendar. The lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the moon’s phases. Many use the time to gather with extended family.
Typically these celebrations typically consist of lots of food, firecrackers and dancing. Her said a common tradition is for adults to pass out red packets full of money to children and unmarried adults.
Her said they decided to make this their first event since the Lunar New year is important to their culture.
Her said that the old executive board had graduated which left him and other members with the task of reviving the club.
Her said that all of the new e-board members were in Chinese language classes together and their professor suggested that they restart the official club since they were all interested in the culture and the language.
The club has a young e-board, who are majority sophomores, which means they have to learn how to run the club, and see what events they will want to continue hosting.
“It’s all our first time being on e-board…we were pretty scared and nervous about what to do, and this is our first event,” Her said.
Her said this event was a trial run to see how things might go.
Henry Lawrence, a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, serves as the executive event organizer for the club.
“I guess that’s why we are all here, to have fun, get people to come and talk and eat food and learn more about Chinese culture,” Lawrence said.
As indicated by the name, the purpose of the club is more than just sharing Chinese culture, but it is also a philanthropy club.
Lawrence said that the group is in the process of finding a charity that they want to contribute to. He also said that looking forward the club plans to host more cultural based events and grow their presence on campus.
Nathan Shannon, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, is the treasurer for the club. Shannon said that it has been hard figuring things out so far, but that they are optimistic for the future of the club.
“Hopefully this event is a breakthrough and we get a lot of hype around Chinese.It ‘s a really cool language,” Shannon said.
This story was written by Ruby Mulvaney. She can be reached at [email protected]
