Lunar New Year celebration in New York

This post about the Lunar New Year celebration in New York was written by EF Academy Ambassadors Germery and Clare

Lunar New Year, a celebration held at the start of a new year according to the lunisolar calendar and the arrival of spring, is the time for people to come together and honor their households as well as their ancestors and other spiritual deities. The celebration consists of preparing all sorts of traditional and symbolic foods, playing music and dancing, getting together with friends and family, and having big festivals that involve fireworks and firecrackers. Red, being considered to be the color of luck, fortune, and prosperity, is seen prominently in decorations that are used to celebrate Lunar New Year, one of the most common decorations being a red lantern. 

Ever since we came to EF Academy in 2020, we have had to switch to celebrating this time through a variety of online performances because of the epidemic. As this was the first time we’ve been able to celebrate Lunar New Year properly, we were all very happy about finally being able to perform live! It was just as amazing and fun as what we had hoped it would be.

Although it was unfortunate that we weren’t able to spend Lunar New Year with our families, we were able to celebrate with our friends while introducing Asian culture to people from other countries. The aspect of being able to share our culture with everyone here at EF Academy definitely motivated us to work even harder for the show as we wanted to recreate the festivity of Lunar New Year the best we could.

Of course, we encountered many problems during the preparation process, even the rehearsal on the day of the performance was not as perfect. But in the end, what mattered most was the fact that all of us put in all our effort to host an entertaining show. There were light-hearted and funny songs as well as well-choreographed dances by the Vietnamese, interactive games to drive the atmosphere by the Japanese, traditional martial arts and entertaining dances performed by the Koreans, retro-pop music by the Taiwanese, and finally an incredible international band as the final closing act with members from Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan. We certainly believe that the whole school felt our enthusiasm during the culture festival through each astounding performance!