Student Directs Lunar New Year Celebration

February 12, 2021

Academics

GNS

The Senior School celebrated Lunar New Year during their assembly on February 10. Cultural Prefect Hannah Yin ’21 led the charge to create the celebration by recruiting contributions from members of the GNS community to put together an exciting performance.

The 2021 Lunar New Year is being celebrated on February 12. The date changes each year, but usually falls between January 21 and February 20. Lunar New Year marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendars that are traditional in several Asian countries.

Hannah shared the assembly MC duties with Anders Woodruff ’21 and Marisa Smith ’21. The celebration opened with the Senior School Grade 11/12 Concert Band performing an extract from ‘Variations of a Korea Folk Song,’ followed by the Mandarin 11 class performing a skit about Lunar New Year.

“What is special about this year, is my mom is friends with people who sing Peking Opera and is running the Peking Opera club in Victoria. So we were able to have a clip for us about Peking Opera and it’s something I find enjoyable, so I wanted to share it,” Hannah explained.

Additional performances included the Senior School Choir with Tallulah Tam on the piano, Hannah playing the pipa, and Grade 10 students Lily Kang and Jo-An Chia performing a Chinese Dance.

“Another performance that I’m proud of was the four aspects of what a Chinese gentleman would be,” Hannah explained. “One is playing an instrument, one is playing Chinese chess called Go, and knowing how to write and draw using Chinese calligraphy.”

Grade 11 students Alice Li, Jason Zhang and Hui Lin Shan sang a Mandarin song, and the celebration concluded with a dance by Stefanie Chen ’21.

Though she’s only been the Cultural Prefect for this school year, Hannah said she’s been brainstorming ways to put on a Lunar New Year assembly for a while. She has been involved in some capacity in previous Lunar New Year assemblies starting when she was in Grade 10, often performing with the flute, pipa or piano.

“Our previous Head Girl Amy started this tradition when I was in Grade 10. So, we have had Lunar New Year for three consecutive years. I’ve been planning it ever since I got involved that year,” she said, noting things got really busy with her planning in September.

“It’s been a really enjoyable experience, however busy it might be,” she adds. “I hope we brought something new that people hadn’t seen before.”

Congratulations to all the students who worked hard to make the assembly one to remember!