Maggie Lile, features editor

After a long winter break, it can be hard to come back to school. The Augsburg Asian Student Association (AASA) helped make it a little bit easier with a beautiful cultural celebration in Foss Chapel a few weeks ago on Jan. 28. As red and gold filled the chairs and lanterns were strung along the balcony, the Lunar New Year celebration gave students time to say goodbye to the past year and give a warm welcome to what’s next to come.

AASA’s goal is to celebrate and bring together the Asian American community not only here at Augsburg but also to the surrounding area. The Lunar New Year celebration is one of their biggest events of the year. “Lunar New Year is based on the lunisolar calendar, and marks the incoming new year. It used to be a religious holiday, made to celebrate the coming of spring and sacrifice to the ancestors and gods, until it eventually became a festival and more entertainment focused,” said Hanna Le, the current marketing and public relations officer for AASA, in an interview with the Echo. “Nowadays, [the Lunar New Year] is celebrated by spending time with family, watching fireworks, going to festivals and celebrations, and exchanging red envelopes.”

The night was packed with fun, traditional events as well as a range of different performances. One event of the night is the Red Envelope Exchange. Le stated, “Traditionally, red envelopes are given from older people (typically married) to younger, unmarried people (typically children), and they have cash inside. In our exchange, there were small candies and a fake dollar inside the envelopes. Eventgoers had a few envelopes, and exchanged them with others.” Prompts such as ‘What are you looking forward to during today’s Lunar New Year celebration?’ were kept inside the red envelopes to act as icebreakers between the people in the crowd. 

Dance performances were also a major part of the celebration. One group, the Đoàn Tôma Thiện (DTT) Lions, performed Vietnamese lion dancing, which flowed down off the stage into the crowd. The Cultural Society of Filipino Americans (CSFA) took their turn and performed two traditional Filipino dances. “Sublî, [is] a religious folk dance, and Tinikling, [is] the Philippine’s national dance,” Le added. And lastly, the Sansei Yonsei Kai, a traditional Japanese group, also took their turn, adding two dance performances to the night.

Don’t miss out on AASA’s other fun upcoming events. Next up, their eighth general meeting will be happening on Friday, Feb. 21 from 4:30 – 6 p.m. in Hagfors 150BC. The meeting “will be a collaboration between Mike Grewe and the Mental Health Task Force. We will be having a clay-charm making destress event,” Le added. Even more exciting, AASA will be hosting their biggest event of the year soon, the Asian Celebration Show (ACS) on Friday, March 7 in Hoversten Chapel, from 5 – 9 p.m. “ACS is our time to celebrate the talent and diverse traditional outfits that the Augsburg Asian community and surrounding Asian community has, and showcase that to the Augsburg community and friends of Augsburg,” said Le. 

The amount of time and effort that AASA has clearly put into planning and executing these events is evident in how amazing they are. No matter what, you definitely don’t want to miss these fun, upcoming events from the group!