Happy Chinese New Year! - Year of the Boar!

Happy Chinese New Year! If you had a chance to stop by the GSO office on Thursday and Friday last week hopefully you were able to grab a handful of Valentine and Chinese New Year candy! :9 I don't know if the University Administration had done it on purpose but I think its great that this year's Winter Recess coincided with Chinese New Year. (I hope they do this every year!)

I just got back from being downstate and spending time with my parents for this celebration. Chinese New Year is a very important holiday for Chinese people. In fact in China and in many other part of the world this celebration lasts for days. I met up with a graduate student working on logistics operations over the weekend and she was telling me that the companies she's in contact with in Asia all said not to contact them this week because of the holiday.

Since this is the "Year of the Golden Pig" Chinatown in NYC is having pig race! Just image a row of swine running down Bowery Street in traffic! (no, not exactly... I don't think Mayor Bloomberg would've allowed it. Almost sounds like a scene from "Gangs of New York") Actually, the Daily News, a major sponsor of this year’s celebration, will present a day of pig races on Sunday, February 25, on Hester Street between Mott and Elizabeth Streets.

All around Chinatown different lion dance groups parade along the sidewalks and enter Chinese Restaurants. They dance for different patrons as they were eatting their meals and then the patrons feed money into the lion's mouth in appreciation for their entertainment. Very amusing and cultural!

If you missed this past Sunday, February 18th's Celebration at "The Egg" that the Chinese community in Albany along with our very own RGSO group the Chinese Students & Scholar Association put on together, but still want to experience Chinese New Year, the celebration in NYC continues from February 18, 2007 and until March 4, 2007.