Celebrating the year of the rat

The Chinese Zodiac

Clockwise: Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.

Year of the Rat 2020

Graphic by Lilinoe Gomez

Celebrating the Year of the Rat

How culture clubs connect students to Chinese New Year celebrations

BY OLIVIA HIXSON

With the Year of the Rat approaching on Jan. 25, students from Asia shared how they make BYU–Hawaii home amongst the festivities of the Chinese Lunar New Year despite being away from home and their families.

President of the China Club Ramona Zhang, a senior from China studying communications, said to celebrate Chinese New Year, her family watches the New Year celebrations on an annual television broadcast which are four-tofive-hours long.

Zang shared this year she is planning a talent show where members of China Club can gather together to show off their talents, replicating the sensation of watching the program. “Because we don’t have the ability to go back to China to celebrate with family, I want students here to celebrate together. I want to make them happy and warm while feeling like they are home.”

Similarly, Zipporah Kwok, a senior from Hong Kong studying graphic design and the president of Hong Kong Club, commented, “We’re in a foreign place for schooling. It’s great that we have a culture club where we all come from the same place, and we all speak the same language… We’re trying to build a home here and a family.”

Both Kwok and Zhang shared the Lunar Year has ties to their families and their cultures, as well as being an exciting tradition to kick off the New Year. They said decorating with red and sharing dumplings, radish cake, tarot cake, and rice cake are standard practices for bringing in the New Year.

Kwok said, “Traditionally, which is no longer legal in most places, we will have firecrackers. Everywhere it is [decorated] red, with red lanterns.”

Chinese New Year dishes traditionally are prepared because they have “good meanings,” added Kwok. “[For example], we have fish because the Chinese word for fish sounds the same as having ‘extra remains.’ So, we will have extras for the year and more in abundance.”

Year of the Rat

According to Chinese tradition, Kwok explained how the animals on the Chinese calendar had a race to decide their order on the calendar and their different attributes. The rat won the race, making it the first animal to appear in the sequence of 12 animals.

She said people born in the Year of the Rat are typically seen as intellectuals who are positive and have big imaginations. Tsang added they are often very competitive due to them winning the first race.

Kwok explained how the rat took the race as a competition, and in a race, you compete to reach the finish line. She said people whose zodiac animal is the rat “always want to win. I think the people [born during the Year of the Rat] always want to be the winner.”

In preparation for this special year, Zhang said people born in the Year of the Rat need to wear something red during the celebration to bring them good luck.

A family affair

With a large portion of this holiday being family-focused, Yu-Chun Tsang, a sophomore from Taiwan studying TESOL, said her family has specific traditions reserved for this celebration, ranging from honoring their ancestors to gambling for good luck.

“Every night of the Chinese New Year, we kneel down and bow to our ancestors one by one. The grandparents will do that first, and they will call the name of the ancestor.”

While noting her family is less traditional, Grace Chang, a freshman from Taiwan studying TESOL, said her family enjoys eating and shopping together during this holiday.

She added when she was younger, she had to clean her living areas to bring good tidings into the New Year.

“We had to clean our rooms before gathering as a family to eat because [need to] clean everything for the New Year.” •