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Dragon dancing spirit event celebrates Chinese New Year
Seniors chant and dance in their brightly colored construction paper dragon. The National Chinese Honor Society prepared a dragon dancing spirit event in celebration of Chinese New Year.
Four vibrantly colored dragons assembled before Manzanita Hall today, dancing with a fiery passion during the spirit event hosted by the National Chinese Honor Society (NCHS).
With Chinese New Year just around the corner, NCHS prepared a week of activities to celebrate this cultural holiday. Today’s dragon dancing, or wu long, has long been a traditional part of Chinese New Year celebrations.
In Chinese folklore, dragons, particularly the red dragon, are considered to be frightening but benevolent spirits that bring good fortune. Each year, dragon dances are performed to ward off evil spirits and ensure a successful year.
The spirit event during long lunch consisted of building a dragon costume and performing a dance before judges.
Teams composed of members from each grade gathered together and proceeded to construct their dragons for around 40 minutes, utilizing long sheets of construction paper and cardboard boxes.
While the upperclassmen incorporated more traditional designs, the freshmen opted for a more comical depiction of a platypus-like dragon, featuring a monocle and handlebar mustache, and the sophomores designed a yellow dragon to exhibit the color of their class.
“It was definitely fun [creating the dragon]. The whole point of spirit events is class bonding, so it doesn’t matter if we won or lost,” sophomore class vice president Nikita Mittal said.
Senior Pooja Shah also participated in building the dragon for her class and found the experience a very enjoyable way to spend her lunch.
“I liked that everyone was working hard and wanted to win, but they were still being chill about it. They weren’t competitive, which was nice,” she said.
After the students finished designing and building the dragons, they paraded outside Manzanita under the dragons they made and showcased their dragon dancing abilities to music provided by the NCHS.
“I thought it was very interesting. I’ve never really watched [a dragon dance], and it was really fun even though we obviously won’t win,” said freshman class president Michael Zhao, who participated as one of the dragon dancers.
Student Activities Coordinator Kerry Enzensperger believes that the juniors and seniors created the best dragons and revealed that she thoroughly enjoyed their performances.
“When the seniors ran by with their dragon, everyone was cracking up, and it was just funny,” she said in response to the seniors’ chanting dance.
In order to coordinate the spirit event, NCHS collaborated with Spirit Club and discussed the logistics of the competition.
“[Spirit Club advisor] Kerry Enzensperger was instrumental in helping us put the event together,” Chinese teacher and NCHS advisor Dr. Shaun Jahshan said, adding that “the classes seemed really enthusiastic about it.” She hopes to make the dragon dance an annual event.
Sophomore Leon Chin echoed this sentiment and thinks “there should be an event before Chinese New Year occurs every year, as it can demonstrate the festivities and tradition of the Chinese culture.”
Tiara Bhatacharya is the Opinion editor for Harker Aquila. She is a senior and has been part of the journalism program since her sophomore year. Her favorite...