By RORY MOORE
Tiger Media Network
The Fort Hays State University International Student Union hosted a celebration for the 2025 Chinese Lunar New Year on Friday inside the Black and Gold Room. Students and faculty were treated to Chinese cuisine, a history lesson about the holiday and how the holiday is traditionally celebrated, a raffle and craft-making activities.
Students and faculty gather in the Black and Gold room for the 2025 Chinese New Year Celebration hosted by the International Student Union. 
Xingyi Long sings “You He Bu Ke? (Why Not?)” 
Matt Schenk, dean of the Kansas International School at Sias University in China, gives a lecture about how the holiday is celebrated. 
Schenk provides examples of how the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated with traditions and customs. 
The crowd engages in an activity drawing Chinese calligraphy. 
Yifan (Amy) Liu leads the crowd with directions on drawing a symbol with a demonstration on screen. 
Paper crafts made to resemble the New Year’s current animal which was the snake. 
Cheng Bo’er (Estelle) Cheng shows off a paper lantern she made with attendees. 
Student Engagement staff perform a dragon dance.
Matt Schenk, dean of the Kansas International School at Sias University in Xinzheng, Henan, China, gave the history lesson and stressed the importance of Fort Hays’ partnership with the University to mark the occasion.
“Every year, we get about 800 students who live in China and go through the Fort Hays State University bachelor program,” he said. “They get to graduate from this program each year after completing their classes with Fort Hays faculty while living and staying in China. Many of them have the opportunity to come to Hays to extend their education through graduate studies.”
Schenk began his lesson by stating that Chinese New Year, or ”Chun Jie,” is the most important holiday in Chinese culture.
“It has different ways of being celebrated in China,” he said. “There are some fundamental ways to celebrate, such as following the lunar calendar, and that means the date is going to change every year depending on what’s going on with the lunar calendar, but it usually falls sometime in the end of January or early February.”
This year, the holiday began on January 29 and is being celebrated as the Year of the snake.
“The Chinese Zodiac is split up into 12 parts,” Schenk said. “Last year was the year of the dragon, and we’re getting ready for the year of the horse. If you want to know your Zodiac, you can count back from the years on the calendar or look it up online in different resources, but you have to be careful. It doesn’t follow the traditional Western calendar.”
The Chinese New Year festivities begin with what Schenk calls the Little New Year.
“You don’t get any time off of work,” he said. “You still have to go to work during that time, and that is often in preparation for the Spring Festival. Then, you’ll have 12 to 14 days of the actual Chinese New Year, and that will culminate in the lantern festival. This is a long-time celebration. Only seven days of this are considered a national holiday when we’re not working, and everyone stays home.”
The Chinese Zodiac determines life aspects in addition to one’s animal.
“It is believed that the year you are born and the zodiac you associate with can influence things such as your personality, partnerships, career, and how you make different decisions,” Schenk said.
Schenk emphasized the most important custom of the Chinese New Year, which is time for families to come together and celebrate.
“Absolutely nobody is working,” he said. “Where I live in China is a rural area, and there’s not a single restaurant open. Everyone is going home, they’re spending time with family, and if you live in the cities where a lot of people live, they go back home to their rural areas where parents and grandparents live. This is often considered the largest migration of humans on the planet.”
This time with family, as Schenk accounts, is orderly in traditions and customs.
“As you’re living with relatives on the first day of the new year, you’ll typically visit with your close relatives, immediate family, and then you’ll use the next several days to expand that family and who you’re visiting with,” he said. “On the first day, mom, dad, kids, and grandparents will be together. On the second day, you might visit aunts, uncles, and extended family. On the fourth and fifth days, you might visit with close family and friends that you might consider to be family.”
One custom that is part of this tradition is the Red Envelope, which families in China gift each other for important moments.
“If you’ve seen these [Red Envelopes], we put money in there, and those are often given as gifts for the Chinese New Year or other special occasions,” Schenk said. “Those are exchanged in large amounts for close family and friends when you’re attending a wedding or a significant event, or smaller amounts when you’re sharing with coworkers or more distant friends.”
The holiday is celebrated in different ways depending on the region in China and the kind of family.
“Different families will have different traditions,” Schenk said. “A lot of that cultural significance will depend on the area in which you live. Much of the food that we eat also has cultural significance like dumplings, fish, and rice. Different provinces and families may have some slight variations in the dishes they eat, and the meals are planned based on family, provincial, and cultural traditions countrywide.”
Schenk noted that fireworks are another Chinese New Year celebration that is similar to its popularity in the United States.
“At midnight, there will be a big fireworks show,” he said. “Sometimes, that show is provided by the local governments earlier in the day, and then in communities and families, they’ll have lots of firecrackers and lots of noise to ward off evil spirits. In many cities, fireworks are sometimes replaced with drone shows due to pollution concerns. So, China has some absolutely incredible drone light shows that will often be in lieu of firework shows.”
The general lesson Schenk gave about the holiday is that Chinese New Year is about ridding evil spirits and welcoming good.
“There’s lots of fun music, and they’ll have acrobatic elements for the dragon dance,” he said. “The dragon is a symbol of protection and strength, and that’s why it’s part of the new year’s celebration to scare off the bad spirits, welcome the good spirits, and usher in an exciting new year.”