By SAM
Chinese New Year celebration shares culture, language
Long ago, there was a ferocious demon named Nian locked in a remote mountain. Every 12 months, Nian would leave the mountain and eat people until the locals discovered that the demon was afraid of loud noises and red colors. People hung red lanterns and set off fireworks, terrorizing Nian, who would flee back to the mountain.
Students perform during Chinese New Year celebrations Sunday night.
For Chinese people, this day became known as “celebrating the new year” or Guo Nian, meaning “survive the demon Nian.” Sunday night, Chinese and other K-State students got together in Forum Hall in the K-State Student Union to celebrate this holiday with song, music and laughter — but most of all with many different shades of red.
“Red in China symbolizes happiness,” said Wei Wu, assistant professor and director of the Chinese program. “This year, our New Year fell on Valentine’s Day, so many people were calling it double happiness day.”
The New Year celebration is also about love with family being the core of the festivities. In China, billions of Chinese people travel across the country to get together with their relatives and express their love for the Chinese Spring Festival or New Year’s, Wu said. The festival, also known as the Lunar New Year, generally falls at the end of January or beginning of February of the Gregorian solar calendar, which is the calendar the United States uses.
Yi Yang, sophomore in business administration, performs a Mongolian dance.
Families get together for dinner and later watch a performance on the China Central Television network. This performance was mirrored last night in Forum Hall.
“The spring festival marks the beginning of the spring season, and it’s the most important holiday in China,” Wu said. “But today, this celebration is not only for Chinese students, but for American students as well.”
The world is becoming increasingly globalized and China’s economy is expanding greatly, so it has become important for Americans to broaden their horizons, Wu said.
“The Chinese New Year does not belong to China, it belongs to the whole world,” said Liang Peng, president of the Chinese Student and Scholars Association, the group organizing the event. “When I came to K-State in 2005, your fingers were enough to count the number of Chinese students here.”
Today, there are more than 800 students from China and 100 faculty members, Peng said, stressing the opportunity American students have to get valuable international experience without going abroad.
China has a cultural heritage that is centuries old, but in today’s world, this culture does not belong just to the Chinese, Wu said.
“We are all becoming tercultural people,” she said. “American students from the Chinese program are learning to speak Chinese in three years.”
Some of these students performed in the festival, demonstrating their fluency in Mandarin.
“I started studying Mandarin to have it as a second language,” said Andrew McGowan, senior in agronomy and one of the performers. “You can’t learn Mandarin without learning something about the Chinese culture.”
Chinese students are also at K-State to learn English and about the American culture, Wu said. The United States has had an important influence in Chinese modern culture.
The performances in the Chinese Spring Festival mirrored this mix, including a group dancing to a modern hip-hop mix and a traditional Mongolian dance.
“American students will start to realize that China is not that far,” Wu said. “Students can really use the opportunity to get exposure to China, as this event is designed to bring two different cultures together.”
The Chinese calendar name of 2010 is 
Geng 
Yin.
, which is pronounced Hu.
, which is pronounced Jin.
and 
are the character symbols for the Chinese Stem-Branch calendar.
Stem-Branch Calendar. Chinese Fortune Calendar provides the information Chinese New Year 2010.
Jie-Chi (solar segment) and Stem-Branch system
Many Chinese like to ask Chinese fortunetellers about their fortune for the year to come. Fortunetellers will tell people when the good luck will come or guide people how to prevent from bad luck or suggest people go to temple pray for good luck. You can find Chinese Horoscopes prediction in this website every year.
Most Chinese families spend at least 3 weeks to prepare Chinese New Year Day. There are many related Chinese traditional culture activities before Chinese New Year Day. If you want to know about Chinese New Year food, religion culture, Gong Xi Fat Choi, fireworks, firecracker, lion dance, dragon dance, music, red envelopes, Jade Emperor, Human Day, Tang-Yuan, Nian-Gao, Fa-Gao, story of Nian, God of Door, God of Land, God of Stove, God of Wealth, Legendary Hell, animal sacrifices and the Lantern Festival, then you must read the followings