Stephan Menasche/Sun Staff Photographer

Cornell Lion Dance performs at the Cornell CSSA 2025 Spring Festival Gala in Bailey Hall, Jan. 31, 2025.

February 1, 2025

Spring Festival Gala Eases Homesickness During Lunar New Year

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The Spring Festival Gala hosted by the Cornell Chinese Students and Scholars Association on Friday evening offered Asian students and community members a place to celebrate the Lunar New Year together and usher in the Year of the Snake.

The sold-out Bailey Hall event had hundreds of attendees, including current students and members of Ithaca’s broader Asian community — from grandparents to children. The event allowed students who usually celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families to find a community away from home and observe the holiday in a heartfelt way.

The gala was targeted specifically at Chinese students, with the majority of the narration being in Mandarin Chinese. However, the emcees often offered an English translation introducing each act.

The gala’s message of celebrating as a community especially resonated with many international students. 

“Being at Cornell, I can’t really be with my family — they’re in China — but I still have my friends to be my second family here,” said graduate student Wei “Tom” Liu.

Audience members enjoyed getting to celebrate the Lunar New Year with friends and community. (Stephan Menasche/Sun Staff Photographer)

Winnie Zhou ’25, who is from Shanghai, China, agreed that the Cornell community helped her feel less alone.

“All of the international students like me feel at home. It’s not like celebrating with your family actually, but … you feel [like you belong],” Zhou said.

This struggle was spotlighted by the short film opening the event, depicting Chinese Cornell students struggling with the homesickness Lunar New Year can bring while at college. The video concluded with them happily celebrating together by folding dumplings and attending the gala. 

The Spring Festival Gala has become an annual fixture for the Chinese community at Cornell. Thinking back to her first gala when she was a first-year student, Zhou said, “It’s getting better and bigger each year, so I would rank this year as the best year [yet].”

During the halfway intermission, the emcees awarded the lottery winners from tickets offered during admission. Audience members won prizes such as Cornell water bottles, AirPods Pros and a Dyson vacuum.

Graduate student Emilie Fu, who was born in 2001, shared her excitement about celebrating her Chinese zodiac year. 

“I was born in the Year of the Snake,” Fu said. “I’m definitely more excited for this coming year because this is ‘my year.’” 

When asked what she hopes for in “her year,” Fu replied, “getting a job offer.”

Eleven performances highlighted the great variety of Chinese cultural arts, including traditional Chinese dancing, singing popular Chinese songs, martial arts and Chinese yoyoing.

Amber Dance Troupe performs at the Cornell CSSA 2025 Spring Festival Gala. (Stephan Menasche/Sun Staff Photographer)

The gala also featured a comedy-drama skit about fraud targeting an elderly man at a bank. Opening the new year with humor, Chinese skits such as these are traditional for the annual Spring Festival Gala broadcasted on the China Media Group — which is an important event within the Lunar New Year celebrations.

The skit earned many laughs from the audience. While the skit was completely in Chinese, the language gap did not stop its message from reaching each and every attendee — such as Amelia Abraham ’26, who, despite not speaking Chinese, still found the skit entertaining. 

“You don’t really need to understand the language to appreciate the art,” she said.

For the grand finale, graduate student Hanxi Xiao and Sofia Liu ’28 sang “Reflection” from Disney’s Mulan. They were accompanied by a choir of young children from the local Chinese school who illuminated the dark stage with handheld lights, bringing the Cornell and Ithaca communities together in one performance. It quickly became a crowd favorite, with Abraham describing it as “touching.”

Despite its primarily Chinese audience, CSSA’s gala succeeded in connecting Cornellians of all walks of life with Asian culture and language. Abraham said she found the prominence of spoken Mandarin throughout the gala “admirable.”

“It’s nice to see how much everyone cares about their culture,” Abraham said.