CNY celebrations!!

The International Relations Committee of the Computing Club has just held its first event in 2009! The Chinese New Year celebration for the Ox Year in the Chinese calender, has been concluded with the lion dance performance, which was by the NUS Lion Dance Troupe. 

The IRC has invited Mr Aaron Tan, a lecturer of the School of Computing, to give an opening speech at the event. He told some traditions of the festival and interacted with the audience by asking about the origin of the CNY. He quoted a few Chinese proverbs which are related to the Spring festival, making the speech entertaining and enriching at the same time. 

This year's CNY celebration was not only focusing on the festival itself, but also on promoting the Chinese arts and culture. The IRC has arranged for Chinese calligraphy and Chinese orchestra performances, and these programmes were greatly favoured by many of the non-Chinese students who attended the event. They even requested that their non-Chinese name to be written in Chinese characters on the red paper. 

The event was not solely performance-based, but also included interactive games such as the Chinese tongue-twister and Chinese riddle. The audience has shown great enthusiasm and participated actively in the games. It is special to note that those who participated in the tongue-twister game were of non-Chinese race! They have little or no knowledge in the Chinese characters, but they were able to read the words with nearly perfect pronunciation. 

Though the celebration has been over, the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year can still be felt. We hope that the students of the SoC can have a fruitful new year, and excel in their studies as as much as they had done so in the past year. 

Happy Chinese New Year!