Photo Report: Feb 2, 2012 Spring Festival & New Year Celebrations

New Year's Day is a traditional and important holiday celebrated by many cultures.  Our Spring Festival and the New Year Celebrations event this year was to showcase East Asia customs and traditions.  The event was co-sponsored by the Confucius Institute of the State of Washington and consisted of many parts including exhibitions of East Asia festivals, traditional food, and games that are played in the New Year among East Asian countries.  We invited Professor HongDuan Yang and his students to introduce the basics of Chinese painting.  Using his own works, he talked about the characteristics of Chinese painting.  He also held a workshop where he invited the audience to try out Chinese painting and calligraphy themselves.  A Wishing Tree was set up to invite guests to make a New Year’s wish and hang it in a “lucky tree”.  The event culminated in our faculty guest speakers and Professor Yang demonstrating the Chinese calligraphy technique then and there.

This event is a celebration and an opportunity for everyone to learn about the East Asia Library and our diverse communities.   We estimated that over one hundred people attended the event.  The games were popular activities among students.  The calligraphy demonstration and food were popular and successful.