The Chinese Student Association brought Chinese culture to campus during its China Night held Sunday in celebration of the Year of the Horse. The year’s name comes from the zodiac legend of Buddha inviting all creatures to celebrate the new year with him. Only 12 animals came, and in their honor, Buddha named a year after each animal. People are said to possess the traits of the animal represented by the year in which they were born.
To begin this year’s annual event, the CSA served ma po tofu, vegetarian curry, beef and scallions and a number of desserts and appetizers. They also had two tables set up to sell Chinese decorations, cards, bookmarks, decorative rocks and other cultural items.
A lion dance choreographed by CSA member Adam Liang opened the performance portion of the evening as a sign of good fortune, prosperity and longevity. A lion dance is often performed during the Chinese New Year’s celebration.
Following the lion dance, five CSA members did a three-series jump rope routine choreographed by A. J. Yin. In the first routine, two members jumped rope together, and than all five members came together to do a double-dutch routine. To end their performance, Yin did an individual jump rope routine.
“Jump roping is a traditional pastime for children in China,” Yin said. “I learned to jump rope in elementary school, and China Night is an opportunity to perform and have fun.”

University graduate student Rose Wang had plans to sing some traditional and modern Chinese songs, but because of a recent illness, she did a piano duet with Linda Hwang. Wang and Hwang played three Chinese children’s songs, “Lily Flower,” “Open the Veil ” and “The Boat Song. ” They also played two Chinese folk songs, “Love of Kung-Ting ,” and “Offspring of the Dragon.”
“Chinese folk songs usually describe the scenery to reflect our emotions,” Wang said. “Sometimes the scenery is used to present love and other times honor for one’s country.”
For the final performance, six members of the University’s Wushu Club team did a series of martial arts routines to music. They used straight swords, broad swords, spears and chain whips in their performances, and they also demonstrated the southern fist and long fist as two different empty-handed styles of contemporary Wushu.
To end their performance, they did a sparring set, which is a choreographed fight scene between two members of the group.
“We have performed at every China Night since our club started in 1994,” Wushu Coordinator Lynnette Buchanan said. “It has been a tradition for us.”
To end the evening’s events, CSA had a game room for audience members to participate in children’s games. The children’s games consisted of a dice game that is similar to blackjack and a Tang BoHu Dian QuiXiang game, which is similar to Jenga. Other games included a memory game where people try to match Chinese characters, Bottle Up, which requires a person try to make a bottle on a string stand up, a blowing paper game, where a person tries to blow a piece of tissue paper as high as possible and a hoop toss game, which is a ring toss with bottles, similar to horseshoe.
“The children are pretty poor in China, and these are games that are easy for them to play,” CSA Director Vickee Liang said. “They basically invent things to play using items such as paper cups, bottles and tissue paper.”
CSA also offered audience members an opportunity to have their pictures taken in traditional Chinese clothing. A couple could dress in traditional red wedding outfits. The man’s costume had a dragon embroidered across the front as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. There were also outfits for emperors, soldiers and peasants from the Han Dynasty.
“The higher class of women during the Han Dynasty always wore clothing with dragonflies, flowers and butterflies on them as symbols of good luck,” Liang said. “The peasants did not have such embroideries on their clothing.”
In addition, audience members could dress up in work clothes of the women in the early 1900s who worked collecting tea leaves in the mountains.
The volunteers for China Night also wore traditional clothing from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the duration of the evening to demonstrate their culture.