Lunar New Year Culture Celebration

The morning of February 14 kicked off with an exciting Lunar New Year assembly!

The assembly featured a presentation, a how-to video about dumplings made by Zax Zhang ’26, and a Kahoot created by the IB 11 Chinese B class. Students and teachers had fun learning about Chinese cultural traditions in a mass game of Kahoot (with more than 100 players!).

Following the assembly, students took part in the second part of the celebration. There were cultural treats in the Dining Hall such as Danish cookies made by Vita Thompson-Chang ’23, Hong Kong egg waffles by Joelle Lo ’26, Scottish shortbread cookies by Georgia McLeod ’25, and rice cakes by Vivian Chen ’25. The treats were gone in a flash!

In the Learning Commons, multiple games and activity stations were available such as henna art, bingo, memory cards, calligraphy and a Chinese crafts table. What drew people to the tables was not the lure of competition, but rather the delicious prize that awaited all players, not just winners. When Pocky treats were being given away, the number of people at every table increased exponentially.

Teachers also joined in the fun. Many students came to watch the competitive bingo match between Ms. Girard and Ms. Wells at the game table, with Ms. Girard claiming the title of the winner. Mr. Thompson and Ms. Elbert also tried their hand at the memory game table. Compared to the Grade 8s who completed the game in less than 8 minutes, it is clear that our mental capacity decreases as we become older—and wiser.

Nevertheless, everyone had fun playing, laughing and socializing. As quoted by Mr. Thompson, “These are my kind of games: everybody wins!”

Special thanks to Alexis Kuo ’24, for leading this event and spending countless hours to ensure every detail was taken care of, to Katharine Morley ’25 and Chelsea Mak ’25 for organizing the Culture Food Fair, and to the enthusiastic volunteers who worked at the different stations! We could not have done this without our community!