Students celebrated the recent Lunar New Year over two separate events, one on the day of Lunar New Year’s, exclusively for international students, and another open to the entire Hill community, two days after. The holiday celebrates the beginning of the new year according to the lunar calendar, an event celebrated widely across East Asian countries. In the Hill School, roughly 20% of students are international students, and the Lunar New Year’s celebrations are looked forward to every year.

Many students at the Hill School are from China, where the Lunar New Year is the most important holiday of the year. However, numerous students miss out on celebrations with families and friends due to studying abroad. In order to remedy this disparity, each year the International Student Ambassadors aim to create a celebration where international students can feel at home.

“The goal is to really bring the family back to the students,” said Helen Qiu, the Director of International Students & Programming. “We played games, and there were authentic dishes. We really tried to bring the family reunion to the students.”

On the day of the new year, international students were invited to a celebration that included food and games. Students enjoyed food from Han Dynasty, a nearby Chinese restaurant. Many international students stated that such events make Hill seem more like a “second home” according to Koji Karasawa ’27.

“International students don’t get many opportunities to go back home,” Karasawa said. “I’m really thankful for the food at the celebration, because it’s a refreshing surprise.”

Later in the week, another event was hosted by the ISA that was open to the entire community, a celebration which included food, drinks, and various minigames.

“It’s not just for the kids that are from countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year, but for everyone that wants to learn more about those festivities, the Spring Festival, and the holidays in general,” said Eric Khong, the Dean of Equity and Inclusion. “This was a place for us to share parts of our culture with other people.”

Throughout the event, many stations were set up, each with their own cultural minigames. Some of these include Gong-gi, a traditional Korean game recently popularized by the TV show “Squid Game,” and Bầu cua cá cọp, a popular dice game played during the Vietnamese new year. Not all these mini-games originated in China. Instead, international students from other countries such as Korea and Vietnam also presented significant games in their cultures.

“It was great to be able to highlight other traditions for the new year that weren’t just Chinese games,” said Khong. “My goal was to expand the celebrations to include some of the smaller celebrations in different countries.”

Throughout many weeks, the ISA worked hard to spread invitations for the school-wide celebration.

“This year we had done very well in promoting this event,” Qiu said. “The day before, we encouraged everyone to wear red, which represents prosperity and good luck. We also created an animated slideshow that showcased all the different stations.”

On the day, many members even expressed that they were quite surprised by the large number of students and faculty members who showed up.

“Not many people in America celebrate this holiday,” said Elva Cheng ’26, a member of the ISA. “I was surprised that this many people showed up because usually in these events very few students do.”

The Lunar New Year celebrations were appreciated by many students, and members of the community were able to enjoy mini-games and food on the occasion.

“This is not something I could have done by myself,” said Qiu. “It’s really meaningful for me to see faculty and kids come and support the event.”