February 6 is a traditional Chinese festival--Lantern Festival in 2012. Confucius Institute at University of Texas at Dallas held a unique celebration for Lantern Festival at the Chinese Experience. The event was planned and arranged by Chinese teacher HU Xueyan. The Chinese and American guests assembled together to enjoy lanterns, guess riddles, learn the paper-cutting and Chinese knotting, taste cookies and sweet soup balls. The celebration was full of lively and harmonious atmosphere and the participants look forward to have the ideal society of World of Great Harmony.

The celebration for Lantern Festival is the 3rd one of activities for Chinese Culture Experience. It was held successfully at Chinese Experience Center of UTD from 7:00pm to 8:30pm on February 6th. Under the help and full preparation by assistant director Zhou Weijun and Instructor Hu Xueyan, the center was decorated with colorful lanterns, lucky poetic couplets and beautiful works of paper-cutting. More than 120 riddles held in the red lucky pouches were put up on the wall in order which would wait for the riddle guessers. The red materials and tools for paper cutting and Chinese knotting are very attractive to the visitors.

The Celebration was hosted by Ms. HU Xueyuan and Professor GU Mingdong, the director of the Confucius Institute, gave the welcome speech with Ou Yangxiu’s famous poem “When the moon hung behind the willows, Young people went out on dates under them” to introduce the connotation of the Lantern Festival. Five volunteer Chinese teachers in the Confucius Classrooms affiliated to UT Dallas were invited to join in the celebration to show the skill of paper-cutting and Chinese knotting. They dressed in Chinese cheongsams and showed their beauty as bright moon shining on the sky in Dallas and talented ladies standing gracefully in the lights. The guests are active to guess the riddles and finally young man, Brandy, obtained first place because of his 16 correct answers. Miss Anwesha got the second place for 10 right answers. Chinese director of the Confucius Institute, Prof. Tian, awarded prizes for them respectively. The skills of paper-cutting and Chinese knotting attracted a lot of American friends and they were eager to try by themselves. After they cut the Chinese words囍, 春, or flowers, birds, fish, rabbit successfully, they were very satisfied with their achievements and carry their own works away happily. The charm of the Chinese culture aroused Timothy Logan’s interest in learning Chinese, a young man from local community, and he decided to enroll to study Chinese language in the Confucius Institute on weekends immediately.

The activities of UTD Confucius Institute at the beginning of 2012 have succeeded and the following cultural events will be rich and colorful this year.