Lunar New Year
Happy Lunar New Year 2025: Chinese Year of the Snake
Happy Lunar New Year from all of us at Warwick Presents!
This week, we have had great fun celebrating Lunar New Year with a variety of activities and games, ranging from craft workshops, a screening of the Chinese National Gala and an incredible Lion Dance performance. We have enjoyed our conversations with you about how you celebrate at home and loved seeing all of your artwork and creations.
The last few days have been great and we'd like to say a massive Thank You to all of you who attended and celebrated with us. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
What did you think?
If you attended the Lunar New Year event, we would really appreciate your feedback. If there's something we've missed or something we can do better, we want to know about it.
Please spare a few minutes to take out survey and be in with a chance of winning a £5 food & drink voucher that you can redeem on campus.
Survey closes Tuesday 4th February.
Sticky Rice cakes
Join us in celebrating the Lunar New Year this week with our homemade, ginger and sesame sticky rice cakes for just 99p each. You can find these delightful treats at Eatwise Test Kitchen, NAIC Cafe, Café Library, District, and Café Gibbet Hill from Monday 27th to Friday 31st January.
Don't miss out!
Lion Dance Finale
Missed out on watching the Lion Dance on Tuesday? Or, do you want to watch it again?
No problem!
We streamed it live on our YouTube Channel and have recorded it for you, so sit back and marvel at the beauty of this traditional Lion Dance performance which is traditionally performed to ward off bad luck, and take a look at the bubbles!!
Photo Gallery
Do you want to see all the lovely things we got up to this week?
Come back soon to see our photo gallery.
Why are we calling it Lunar New Year?
Within our university community, we have students, staff members and alumni from a wide range of backgrounds, many of whom also celebrate this festival in different ways and often with different names including Spring Festival, Seollal, Tet and Losar.
Ahead of organising the celebrations, we have consulted a wide range of cultural societies around the naming convention for this festival including several of the Chinese societies, and many students favour the inclusivity of the term ‘Lunar New Year’ to reflect the wide variety of backgrounds and traditions encompassed in this celebration.
Therefore, in an attempt to increase inclusivity, the University is referring to this festival as the ‘Lunar New Year’, while also referencing the ‘Chinese’ year of the Snake, to acknowledge the broad consensus around the Chinese origins of the zodiac animals.
It is also clearly understood that individual societies, students, staff members and our alumni community will use the naming convention that feels most authentic to them.
We hope this helps to explain why we reference the Lunar New Year alongside the Chinese Year of the Snake within our University communications.
We feel our decision is in alignment with other key corporations and organisations, including the UN.
More information on the rationale for referring to this celebration as Lunar New Year can be found on the links below:
1) UN News, explains why Lunar New year terminology was chosen:
(Chinese) 联大通过决议将农历新年列为联合国假日 | | 1联合国新闻
(English version via Google Translate) UN General Assembly passes resolution to designate Lunar New Year as a UN holiday | 1 UN News
2) UN announcement (in a speech): Lunar New Year 2024 | United Nations in China
3) Chinese official news channel (Xinhua News): Spring Festival listed as UN floating holiday-Xinhua
What else is happening on Campus?
There are other ways to get involved and celebrate Lunar New Year, if you're planning something you want included on this page, get in touch to let us know via Warwickpresents@warwick.ac.ukLink opens in a new window