{"id":132,"date":"2019-02-14T15:58:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T20:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emily\/?p=132"},"modified":"2019-02-14T15:58:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T20:58:07","slug":"international-celebration-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/2019\/02\/international-celebration-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"International Celebration Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I am a little early for Chinese New Year (it\u2019s in February), I couldn\u2019t resist writing about the university\u2019s amazing international celebrations and the decorations that they put up. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Catlett Dining Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Back in August<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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With no decorations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last semester, I wasn\u2019t surprised to see decorations for Halloween and Christmas; we are in the U.S. after all. But when we returned after Christmas and they changed the decorations to Chinese New Year ones, I felt so nostalgic!<\/span><\/p>\n

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CNY Deco in Catlett Dining Hall…No Housing and Dining people cuz I need to ask official people for permission to take their photos…If I manage to get one, it’ll come up for sure!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wasn\u2019t expecting there to be decorations for the Lunar New Year. Maybe because it\u2019s not a holiday celebrated in America, although it is celebrated in Malaysia (school students get a week off and working adults tend to get two to three days depending on proximity to the weekend). Therefore, I was very pleasantly surprised to see Chinese New Year decorations in the dining hall. Although perhaps I should have guessed that they would have them, due to there having been Diwali decorations during the Hindu celebration last November.<\/span><\/p>\n

The dining hall isn\u2019t the only place that has decorations for international holidays not necessarily celebrated in the U.S.; different clubs and groups of people have their own ways of celebrating the holidays. Last semester, for example, the Indian Student Alliance hosted a Diwali celebration of their own and this semester, the Malaysian Student Society is combining an introductory meeting for the incoming Malaysian students and a Chinese New Year celebration at the Iowa Memorial Reunion, followed by ice skating rink at the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Malaysian Student Society CNY Party!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aside from the cultural organizations, I really appreciate how the majority of the university tries to celebrate the international holidays. For example, last November, the International Student Ambassadors had our own Diwali celebration at India Cafe downtown.<\/span><\/p>\n

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India Cafe…not with the Ambassadors, but with two of them before Christmas break!!! \ud83d\ude00<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is part of what makes the University of Iowa feel like home, even when we can\u2019t be with our own families to celebrate these holidays. Although I will miss the tea ceremony with my parents and grandparents and friends, miss the family reunion on Chinese New Year Eve, miss decorating the pussy-willow tree, miss all the traditional food, ranging from braised mushroom with black fungus (<\/span>fatt choy<\/span><\/i>), spring rolls (<\/span>chut tai<\/span><\/i>), popiah (homemade!), seaweed jelly (<\/span>agar agar<\/span><\/i>), sago pudding with <\/span>gula Melaka<\/span><\/i> (a special brown sugar)…. I feel hungry just thinking of all the food! (Even though I am not the biggest eater of Chinese cuisine\u2026).<\/span><\/p>\n

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Family!!! ❤️<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Friends!!! And sis, of course!\u00a0❤️<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My sister and me decorating the pussy-willow tree with homemade origami cranes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Me giving my maternal grandparents tea in exchange for angpaus during the traditional Tea Ceremony!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aside from Skyping my family during their Chinese New Year celebrations, the way I did at Christmas, I am happy that I will be able to celebrate it here at the University of Iowa. <\/span><\/p>\n

To all those homesick students out there…I feel you, but know that the University of Iowa is just as much your home as your actual one (at least it feels that way to me!). And, to everyone, particularly the Chinese students and staff, happy Chinese New Year and enjoy the Year of the Pig!<\/span><\/p>\n

That means we can be greedy, right…? HAHA.<\/p>\n

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NOMNOMNOM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oink, oink! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I am a little early for Chinese New Year (it\u2019s in February), I couldn\u2019t resist writing about the university\u2019s amazing international celebrations and the decorations that they put up. Last semester, I wasn\u2019t surprised to see decorations for Halloween and Christmas; we are in the U.S. after all. But when we returned after Christmas … Continue reading International Celebration Traditions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/emilyg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}