Welcoming the Year of the Snake: UCI’s Lunar New Year

UC Irvine honored a decade of Lunar New Year celebrations with a pre-event at the Student Center’s Pacific Ballroom and main event at the Irvine Barclay Theater on Jan. 21. 

UCI’s Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese programs and clubs performed traditions, including the dragon dance and the feeding of the lions. Local vendors and UCI cultural clubs participated in celebrations including the rhythms of Hansori at UCI, the Hikari Taiko drummers and the K-Pop Dance Team at UCI.

According to the Chinese traditional lunisolar calendar, the holiday falls on Jan. 29 this year, and the Chinese Zodiac deems 2025 as the Year of the Snake. 

Lunar New Year celebrates the coming of spring and the new year. Chinese, South Korean and Vietnamese communities celebrate the holiday on varying dates with respect to their cultural traditions.

“For Koreans, a lot of Korean Americans, we celebrate Lunar New Year on Jan. 1,” Korean American Student Association (KASA) first-year intern Lauren Ahn told New University. “The Lunar New Year times is not as commonly celebrated [in Korean culture]. So, for my family, we always do it on Jan. 1.”

KASA is a student association that shares Korean culture on campus through social, community and political events. Established in 2010, the association hosts meeting events, traditional cooking workshops, karaoke nights, fundraisers and more. 

According to Ahn, Lunar New Year is celebrated with food, family and traditional games. As such, the Korean program at the festival taught students how to play gonggi, jegichagi, ddakji, yut nori and other cultural games.

“For Korean culture, it’s really common to eat tteokguk, which is a rice cake soup, for the New [Year]. So, we do that and then we also will wear our hanboks, the traditional clothing, and then we’ll bow to our elders and then wish them a happy new year in return for money,” Ahn said. “So, that’s a tradition that I do every year with my family.”

Lunar New Year traditions are important to those who celebrate it: culture lives on through the traditions of one of the most prominent Asian holidays.

“I think just something that was really important for my family was keeping the traditions alive. Considering that most of my family is in America, or actually all of my family is in America, they didn’t want to lose the culture. So every year, they make sure that we’re getting together and we’re celebrating New Years,” Ahn said. “And just being with my family and doing those traditions every year, is something that I would want to make sure that I do as I get older and have children and stuff like that in the future too.”

In Chinese folklore, people lit firecrackers and brandished red on their clothes and homes to scare away a beast named Nian — Chinese for year. Nian rose from the sea at the beginning of the year and attacked the people on land. 

Like the folklore tradition, modern celebrations include fireworks, red themes, traditional dances and booming music. The annual holiday is also meant to bring celebrators good tidings and prosperity for the new year. Similarly, the Chinese program at the festival taught attendees how to make traditional red paper fans, lanterns and hats.

Photo by Yejin Song / Staff

Dragon dance performance at the 2025 Lunar New Year festival in the Student Center Pacific Ballroom. 

According to Chinese Association at UCI (CAUCI) Co-President Brandon Hsi, Chinese New Year celebrations include traditional “hongbao,” which are red paper envelopes containing money. 

“Since I am from around the area, I do have, I am fortunate enough to be able to celebrate Lunar New Year with my family,” Hsi told New University. “So, I would get together with the extended family and we’ll just have [a] get together, eat food, we do exchange red envelopes or a hongbao, and we also eat traditional foods such as moon cake.” 

Food is one of the most important aspects of celebrating culture and heritage. One of Hsi’s favorite childhood memories is making dumplings.

“One childhood memory that I could touch upon would probably be making dumplings with my family. So, this was when I was a lot younger, so my parents — my mom and my dad — would teach me and my sister to make dumplings,” Hsi said. “It would start with making the filling of the dumpling, you know, mixing that together. And then you placed it on the dumpling paper and you wrapped it up and cooked it. And I think for me that’s where I felt more in tune with my culture creating these foods, that really resonated with me.”

According to their mission statement, CAUCI is a social, cultural and community-based organization that brings Chinese culture to Orange County and Los Angeles residents. They host various events, including weekly after-events following each meeting. Their most anticipated events are their annual Cultural Night and ski trip.

CAUCI also manages the Chinese Association Dance Crew (CADC) and the Chinese Association Tricking Team (CATT). CATT is fairly new, but the association established CADC as one of Southern California’s most prominent hip-hop dance crews in 1994.

“Outside of our club, the dance crew, they do share the name of us, the Chinese Association. So, that’s a way of getting our name out there,” Hsi said. “And by performing at these outside events, they share Chinese culture in a way by having it in their name and spreading diversity and other values.”

The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) at UCI also manages a recognized dance team; Trance is VSA’s traditional Vietnamese pop dance group, established in 2004. This Lunar New Year, Trance performed at the pre-event in the Student Center.

Têt Nguyen Dan,” or “Têt,” is Vietnam’s celebration of the Lunar New Year and one of the biggest holidays in Vietnamese culture.

Traditions include cleaning homes and settling debts to clear away negativity and prepare for the new year. People typically stop by their family’s graves and visit temples, pagodas and churches to pay homage to their ancestors. Like Korean and Chinese traditions, they also give fancy, red envelopes full of “Li Xi,” or lucky money. 

VSA was unavailable to speak with New University about their experience celebrating this year’s Lunar New Year.

Students can visit Irvine Barclay Theater’s website to keep up with future events. Those interested in membership opportunities at KASA, CAUCI or VSA can visit their Instagrams @ucikasa, @caucirvine and @vsauci.

Alyssa Villagonzalo is a Features Apprentice for the winter 2025 quarter. She can be reached at akvillag@uci.edu.

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