As Chinese New Year undergoes its two week long celebration, the Ancient Chinese Traditions Club and the Chinese Language and Career Initiative organized its 2024 Yale Chinese Program Spring Festival Celebration. The celebration was held at the Center for Language Study and the entire first floor was decked out in festive decorations made by professors, lanterns with quizzes on them to be redeemed for prizes, and rooms full of activities. Activities there included catered Chinese food, karaoke, calligraphy, mahjong, and tea tasting. There was even entertainment from student performances including a guest performance from New York who did “face changing” Sichuan opera.
I can’t believe my Chinese teacher actually gave out red envelopes
Graduate student who learned how to play guzheng!
Face changing performance was kind of scary
It was strange yet entertaining to see professors outside of the classroom running these activities including hosting the talent show, passing out food, and playing with little kids. Some teachers I haven’t seen since taking their class were all gathered together. Additionally, this event opened up my eyes to how big the Chinese program community is as international graduate students, postdocs, and professors all showed with their families, contributing to the atmosphere as people of all ages hung around playing games and eating candy. I was also introduced to new businesses in New Haven because who knew there was a tea shop up near the Yale Divinity School that not only sells loose leaf tea but also holds tea ceremonies??? The event went on for over three hours and it was never boring, especially hearing professors crack jokes when you’re used to them only correcting your grammar.
The Chinese language program spans five levels and includes a heritage and non-heritage track, so there are students of all levels and years, including from the graduate schools. The course offerings are extremely targeted with five progressive levels for beginners who have no background in Chinese as well as five for people who may have spoken Chinese at home. As you move up the levels, there are more advanced courses targeting specific topics such as business, politics, media, literature, etc.
I didn’t know many people since I started from the fifth level of the heritage track, so many of the students in my classes remained the same. I ended up bringing a friend who has never taken Chinese, and he was reluctant to come. Once we went, he saw how welcoming all the professors were and this fun and hectic event really reflected the culture of the program.
