The event, initiated by the Dartmouth Asian Organization, was created to foster an understanding of Asian culture for the many non-Asians in attendance and also to bring together many of the Asian groups on campus, DAO president Elisha Tam '07 said.
"I think Asian culture is particularly hard to penetrate and understand, because Asians tend to be very guarded when it comes to race. By coming to this event [people] can see a part of who we are and hopefully both sides will become less prejudiced and will be more understanding," Tam said.
Although the Lunar New Year, which is an ancient Asian agricultural holiday, will fall on January 29 this year, students celebrated early because many Asians return to their families on the real lunar new year.
Tam first thought of organizing a large celebration of the Lunar New Year at Dartmouth only 17 days prior to the event.
In the two and a half weeks before the holiday, Tam brought together many different Asian organizations on campus, including the Dartmouth Chinese Cultural Society, Vietnamese Students Association, the Dartmouth Taiwanese Association and the Korean Student Organization, and pulled together a wide range of booths and performances to fill Collis Commonground.
Tam said that the event was a learning experience for Asian, as well as non-Asian, students.
"Well, for the Asian community, it's good because I think some of them don't realize how connected we all are," Tam said.
With that goal in mind, the Vietnamese-American booth selling t-shirts was placed right next to a Korean booth giving out traditional dumplings. The event also mixed traditional performances with displays of modern pop culture.
Aimee Lim '09 performed a riveting Korean fan dance, while Kim Tran '07 demonstrated her skill on the dan bau, a traditional Vietnamese instrument that has only one string.
These traditional performances were punctuated by popular new music videos from Korean MTV and a performance of Ni Yao De Ai ("The Love You Want"), the theme song of a huge Taiwanese TV drama show.
The mood was given a playful tint with the attendance of Asian children from the DAO Pals program.
While people of all cultures sat eating traditional cuisine and catching up on everyday occurrences, the children danced to MTV music videos and made crafts.
Pleased with the success of Sunday's celebration, Tam said she hoped to bring the event back next year.
"I hope we can all take away a better understanding of a culture and also come out realizing that we're all the same. That we all celebrate, respect and love the same things," Tam said.
