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Grace Guo

Junior Kelly Shi (left), junior Jessica Dinh (middle) and junior Julia Peng (right) dance along with Just Dance.

The CHS National Chinese Honor Society is hosting a Chinese New Year celebration at the Carmel Clay Public Library (CCPL) on Feb. 14. 

For freshman Chelsea Meng, the Chinese New Year event is a great way for her to partake in celebratory Chinese New Year traditions while living in Carmel. 

“I used to live in China and I moved to America when I was 6,” Meng said. “Chinese New Year was incredibly important to us because it was celebrated throughout my whole extended family. Most of my family lives in China so we had huge gatherings and reunion dinners to celebrate Chinese New Year.”

Terry Xie, an officer of CHS National Chinese Honor Society, said many traditions were prevalent in Chinese communities for Chinese New Year. 

“One of the main traditions is just coming together with family,” Xie said. “You can’t cut your hair on New Year’s Day. You don’t clean on New Year’s Day, you don’t shower on New Year’s Day and stuff like that, but the biggest one is just eating dinner together. There’s also fireworks at night as well, and (we also) wear red.”

Jing Luo, president of the Indianapolis Chinese Community Center Inc. (ICCCI), said he agreed with Xie and Meng and said family was a huge part of Chinese New Year celebrations. 

“Chinese New Year is a time for people to gather together with their families and celebrate the new year,” Luo said. “It’s one of the major holidays in Chinese culture and typically, people will get a week off to celebrate. People from all over China return home to celebrate with their families, similar to Thanksgiving in America. There are also special foods that we eat at the big dinner, each with their own meaning. Each region of China has their own kind of food that they usually eat to celebrate. For example, people in northern China eat dumplings. Many families will watch the Chinese New Year gala while eating dinner.”

Meng said after she moved to America, she encountered a lack of these Chinese New Year traditions despite the importance of celebrating Chinese New Year for Chinese households. 

“After moving to America, I’ve noticed that Chinese New Year isn’t celebrated as much (among Chinese households),” Meng said. “I think it’s just because of societal norms and we’re also living in a community with different traditions and different people, so it’s going to be different than if we were living in China where everyone basically celebrates the same thing with the same traditions and culture.”

Xie said a lot of people held the same opinion as Meng and the representation of Chinese culture and traditions could be improved. 

“I think if you compare it to other places in Indiana, the representation of Chinese culture and traditions in Carmel is pretty good, but in general, I think it’s probably average,” Xie said. “It’s not super good. It’s also not terrible, but compared to the rest of Indiana, it’s pretty good.” 

Meng said she often feels disappointed at the lack of representation of Chinese culture and traditions in Carmel. 

“It’s kind of sad how so few people (in America) celebrate (Chinese New Year),” Meng said. “Obviously some households still do celebrate, but the difference between Chinese New Year celebrations in China and ones here are really noticeable.” 

Luo said more representation and education in Chinese culture would help with negative stereotypes about the Chinese community.

“Having more cultural events and encouraging more people to participate can help,” Luo said. “Chinese representation and education on Chinese culture is very one-sided and sometimes (can) perpetuate the current stereotypes of Chinese people. If more people are able to learn about Chinese culture, it can help remove those stereotypes and prejudices people hold.”

Xie agreed with Luo and said harmful stereotypes are on the rise right now. 

“Better education about Chinese culture will basically help get rid of stereotypes,” Xie said. “Right now there’s a lot of Asian stereotypes specifically targeted towards Chinese people and xenophobia has been a lot more prominent since COVID-19. There’s also this new thing going on where people are attributing Chinese culture to Korean cultures and Japanese cultures and it just erases a lot of Chinese origins and stuff like that and further isolates Chinese people from the Western world. Chinese New Year is one of the biggest celebrations in China, so I think if we can learn more about Chinese New Year and just celebrate the biggest celebration that Chinese people have, it can help with reducing stereotypes.”