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Celebrating Chinese New Year with the Languange Centre

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Happy New Year! Chinese New Year is one of my favourite holidays in the year. I always spent it with my extended family during my childhood. But ever since I moved to the UK to study, I cannot spend it with my family anymore. Yet, I celebrated it with my friends. My CNY traditions has changed ever since. Me and my friends will gather in one house and do potluck. But all those previous traditions cannot be done this year. Due to the pandemic, it is forbidden by law to mix household and I can’t go home to see my family. So, I choose to join the Chinese New Year tradition talk with the Language Centre of the University of Leeds.

The event was held online through zoom invitation on the Chinese New Year day (12 February 2021) and was attended by students from diverse ethnicity backgrounds. The participants seem to enjoy the talk as it was engaging! We were given a chance to share our ideas towards “what we know about Chinese New Year tradition” by filling an online board. I like seeing the board! Every time a person writes something, the word will automatically be inputted into the board and arranged in such interesting arrangement. 


The talk is about the Chinese New Year tradition in China, explained to us by a Chinese moderator who worked with the Language Centre.

“Niú nián dà jí “

Is the phrase we all learned to say Happy New Year of Ox in Chinese.
It is also funny that Chinese are very good at making puns! This new year is year of “ox” which is “Niú” in Mandarin so instead of “Happy ‘New’ Year” they are changing it to “Happy ‘Niú’ year”.


So, you may wonder why this year is ox year? This is also an interesting fact they brought us. There is a list of 12 animals and every year the animals are rotated according to an order. Also, our Chinese Zodiac is determined by the year we born in. Participants were fascinated by this fact and were excited to identify their Chinese Zodiac according to birth year (Mine is rabbits!). Fun fact, this zodiac can be used to determine a perfect partner!

I enjoyed this event so much! It was engaging and it was nice to see non-Chinese students fascinated by the Chinese Culture. It also gives me the cheer of Chinese New Year even though I am not celebrating it with my loved ones.

Thank you, the Language Centre for arranging this!

Also, I just found out that the University have a whole webpage dedicated for Chinese culture. This webpage is for discovery on Chinese culture. You can also find various events organised by it. Last year, I joined the dumpling cooking demonstration during the CNY!

It is always fun to participate in such event. I found it combatting my homesickness and gives me the feeling of being appreciated as my culture is just there!

Find it out here