Lunar New Year 2023

This weekend, Concord students and staff came together to welcome in the Lunar New Year. Many are celebrating the Year of the Rabbit, symbolising peace and longevity in the forthcoming year, while Vietnam is welcoming the Year of the Cat, which represents good luck and a smooth sailing new year.

For some students on campus, celebrating Lunar New Year away from home can be a challenging element of studying overseas, but each year our Concord students and staff join together to support one another and partake in celebratory activities to recognise the new year.

For those in Lower School, celebrations began in the week leading up to the new year, where the LS Monitors organised a Lunar New Year challenge. In pairs, Lower School students spent the week searching for several decorated booths across the campus. Each station housed an activity that centred around New Year celebrations from different cultures. The challenges encouraged students to exchange stories about their own winter and new year celebrations at home. It also made for some wonderful and fun photo opportunities!

Rochelle (Form 5), who is from Hong Kong, was paired up with Ozy (Form 3), from Bulgaria. The two were keen to learn more about each other’s celebrations for the new year. Rochelle learned about the Bulgarian pie (баница) that Ozy and his family will place fortunes into, wrapped in tin foil: “Then, for the New Year, everyone picks a piece of pie and it is said that whatever fortune is in your slice will happen during the year”.

Ozy was also eager to learn about Rochelle’s Lunar New Year celebrations in Hong Kong: “Rochelle usually goes with her family to visit her older relatives.”

“One highlight of Rochelle’s holidays is spending time with her family eating all of the fancy traditional dishes such as lin goh and rabbit candies”.

Saturday night saw the whole school celebrations, an evening packed with brilliant food and a fantastic disco to celebrate the Lunar New Year. All of Concord’s 580 students were invited to enjoy a special Lunar New Year buffet before heading to the disco in the West End to continue the celebrations. The buffet featured vegetable chow mein or egg fried rice and toppings included crispy chilli beef and fried aubergine (to name just a few). All dishes were served in takeaway style noodle boxes, and the dining hall was decorated for the new year.