Lunar New Year Celebration 2005

Each year, Chinese and Korean MBA students host a Lunar New Year Celebration co-sponsored by the Tippie School of Management and the MBA Association. The Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, marks the New Year according to the lunar calendar. The holiday typically takes place in late January or early February, and the date varies from year to year. It is one of the most important and widely celebrated holidays in many East Asian counties such as China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with each nation having its own unique traditions and customs of celebration.

This year's MBA Lunar New Year celebration was held on February 9th and coincided with the actual date of the 2005 Lunar New Year. The evening began with MBA students, faculty, and friends having the chance to sample a delicious variety of Korean and Chinese dishes. Dishes ranged from Korean sushi (kim-bap) to Chinese dumplings (boa-zi and zhao-zi).

This year's celebration featured a Chinese and a Korean program. Chinese students kicked off their program by having Shengli Zhao, UI MBA '06, introduce the origin and traditional customs of the Chinese Spring Festival. His classmate, He Hui, followed by explaining the Chinese Zodiac, which runs in 12-year cycles with each year being represented by an animal. The 12 animals are: rat, ox/cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram/sheep, monkey, rooster/chicken, dog, and pig. 2005 is the year of the chicken.

Jialin Qi, UI MBA '06, then explained the cultural importance of the Chinese dumpling, which originated in Northern China and is viewed by many Chinese as the traditional food of the Spring Festival. A demonstration of successful dumpling making was provided. The Dumpling Challenge followed, which grouped the audience into teams, whose mission was to make as many anatomically correct dumplings as possible. Next Zhu Liming, UI MBA '06, offered another challenge. After demonstrating the proper use of chopsticks, he allowed audience members to test their own skills, which proved that the "Karate Kid" has nothing over an MBA student.

First-year MBA students Yang Qiao, Wei Gu, and Jun Yu then shared highlights of China's past and present. After testing the audience's geographic skills and memories, they allowed everyone to view video images of China while guest artist Su Zhang performed on the traditional Chinese string instrument, Guzheng. The Chinese program was then capped by a Gongfu video demonstration presented by Shengli Zhao.

Korean students got their program underway by introducing the traditions and history of the Korean Lunar New Year holiday known as Seol. Korean students, family members, and friends began the program with the traditional New Year's greeting called sebae. Sebae is an elaborate and precise bow or curtsey that, when performed in the traditional Korean dress, is very elegant.

Soo Yeon Lee, UI MBA '05, followed the sabae with an introduction to the traditional Korean clothing style known as Hanbok. In addition to pictures, she and numerous Koreans in the audience modeled their own traditional clothes that demonstrated the beautiful and colorful elegance of the Hanbok. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the evening was seeing the numerous Korean children proudly donning their Hanbok and looking most adorable!

Myungkyu Noh, UI MBA '06, took us from fashion to ritual, when he explained the rite of Charye, the ritual that honors one's ancestors. Typically performed on Seol, the rites of charye involve offering food and drink to the departed family members. Important to charye is the ritual table where certain foods are arranged based on type and color. There are numerous rules that dictate the order in which food is placed on the tray. Myungkyu shared a few of these common rules: Red foods and meats are placed on the east side of the table while white foods and fish are set on the west side.

However, not all food on Soel is left for the ancestors, so while Soo Yeon and Myungkyu explained their traditions, Jong-in Jang, UI MBA '06, provided the audience with a taste of homemade ddok-guk, or rice dumpling soup, which is the traditional Korean New Year's dish.

In addition to the traditions of food, Koreans also place a ritualistic significance to certain folk games, several of which were demonstrated by Jong-in. He first provided a demonstration of the popular boys' game jaegi-chagi, in which a shuttlecock is kicked with one foot or both feet into the air followed by attempts to kick it as many times as possible before it hits the ground. He even allowed several members of the audience to try their skills. This was followed by the introduction to too-ho, an ancient game of pitching arrows into a pot. (Wisely, no demonstration was allowed with the arrows!) The last game introduced was the board game yut-nori. This traditional Korean game, usually played on the first day of the Lunar New Year, uses four halved sticks (flat on one side and curved on the other) much like dice as a measure of scoring and moving across the board. Given the Korean love of games, this proved to be an appropriate way to end the evening.

As always, the Lunar New Year allowed the Chinese and Korean MBA students to share this important holiday with their Tippie friends. Their efforts were much appreciated and reminded us again of the warmth, goodwill and respect generated through the sharing of one's traditions.