Willkie celebrates Asian traditions

"The world's most colorful" was how emcee Ying Wang, a senior, described the Lunar New Year celebration Friday evening at Willkie Quad.\nWang said the event, sponsored by the Asian Cultural Center, the Office of International Programs and CommUNITY Educators, was unique, entertaining and educational.\n"(The celebration) showcases to our best ability traditional Asian arts," he said. \nGraduate student Daisy Rodriguez, diversity education specialist for Willkie, said the holiday is an important part of many Asian cultures, and a time during which individuals and families gather to celebrate their heritage, their ancestry and the new year to come. \n"We are a heterogeneous Asian culture with unique differences," Rodriguez said. "The event is a great way to showcase the theater and to secure different groups in the residence halls." \nThis year was no exception. The festival of Asian music, dance, dress and food highlighted a small portion of each culture. \nCommonly misrepresented as the Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year is celebrated in Indonesia, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam and among the Hmong people, as well as in China. According to the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project (www.chcp.org), the first full moon of the Western year marks the start of the holiday, and each celebration varies. In Korea, the celebration is known as Sol, while the celebration is known as Tet in Vietnam, the Web site states. \n"This event brings together Asian countries, uniting the campus, and Asian culture," Wang said.\nMelanie Castillo-Cullather, director of the Asian American Cultural Center, said the variety of cultures represented in the Wilkie celebration added an important dimension to the event.\n"The diversity of the arts and culture in Asia is expressed in different ways," she said, "but there is a commonality in what is shown." \nAmong some of the talent assembled for this event was a rarely seen traditional Mongolian Bowl and Cup Dance performed by Tana Baumann; a duet of traditional Chinese music performed by juniors Conrad Chow and Anna Cho; a fashion show of traditional Asian clothing; and a rendition of "Silk Road" from the movie, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" performed by junior Po Kim Tan, sophomore Po Joo Tan, junior Lillian Lau and a Korean Samulnori percussion group. \nRachmat Koentjoro, president of the Indonesian Student Association, said some countries don't have the freedom to celebrate this aspect of Asian culture because of governmental rules and regulations. \n"There was the prevention of Indo-Chinese from celebrating the Lunar New Year," he said. "Now the government is overthrown and we are moving towards a more democratic system. It is still in transition and we like it."\nOther students tell a similar story of their ancestry. Maysee Yang, a graduate assistant at the Asian Cultural Center, told the crowd about her Hmong heritage. \n"The Hmong are a people without a country," she said, adding that they lived in the mountains and China before the Vietnam War forced many to head for the United States. "The Hmong culture celebrates the Lunar New Year before the actual calendar new year, and the tradition came from the Chinese"