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Schools

Hop To It and Celebrate the New Year

It was a hare-raising event at Village Elementary School Friday as they marked the year of the Golden Rabbit.

Everywhere you looked last Friday at  you saw red. That’s because for over two months now the PTA was busy planning and setting up for this one day celebration of the Chinese New Year. 

As you walked into the lobby, a beautiful mural adorned with a rabbit greeted you - turning to the left was a wishing tree loaded with red paper notes set against a theatrical black background, plied with additional decorations to offset the tree.

“Hung on these branches are hundreds of written wishes created by the children during art classes," said PTA mom and co-chair of the event, Carol Cheng. "Some of the wishes are for peace and love while others are for a toy or game."

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Walking down the hallway towards the cafeteria, round tubes of paper made to simulate fire crackers were seen everywhere you looked. With the help of Chinese language teacher Tien Lao Shi and first grade students, hundreds of these coloful cylinders were created. Besides the hallway, they were dangling by gold threads all throughout the cafeteria. 

Six creative families from Village got together over the course of a few weeks time and assembled lovely red fan-shaped decorations edged with gold that lined the perimeter of the lunch room. 

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“A lot of the more detailed decorations, such as the lanterns and posters, were ordered directly from Taiwan," Cheng said. "We wanted to really imbue the spirit of the day throughout the school."

Halfway through their Asian lunch of chicken and broccoli with rice served to them by parents dressed in red and black, the tiny diners were treated to a musical performance by their peers. With their string instruments poised, the students played delightful songs to go with the theme.

 Towards the end of the lunch period, PTA dad Eugene Cheng got up to give the children a pop quiz.  Holding red envelopes to be presented to the winners (traditionally these would be filled with money, but for school purposes they had chocolate coins) he quizzed the audience with questions about the New Year, such as this one: What was last year’s animal?  Answer: Tiger.  What will next year be? Answer: Dragon. And so on.

“When celebrating the first day of the New Year and if it’s the symbol of your birth, there is a custom that you must be on your best behavior for that will represent how the remainder of the year will go for you,” Cheng said.

Check to see if you are the year of the rabbit and make sure to put your best foot forward.

So that it is not hare today, gone tomorrow and you want to get in on the festivities locally, try Golden Temple at 417 Jericho Turnpike. Phone: 516-364-6476.  For the New Year they are adding a special Chinese menu, but you have to be in the know and ask for it by name. 

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