{"id":3499,"date":"2025-02-13T14:40:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2025-02-13T14:40:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:40:59","slug":"albion-elementary-students-celebrate-lunar-new-year-with-lion-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/albion-elementary-students-celebrate-lunar-new-year-with-lion-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Albion Elementary students celebrate Lunar New Year with lion dance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/InSm-xnJwPU?si=tE_6kn9wwwlN4Cry\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Students line the hallways at Albion Elementary as bright red and yellow lion heads bob up and down to the beats of a drum.<\/p>\n<p>The lions are making their way around the school, dancing and collecting red envelopes hanging from the doorways of each classroom to celebrate the Lunar New Year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur lions danced through the hallways and ate the red envelopes, which symbolizes bringing good luck and prosperity into the new year,\u201d explained English Language Learners teacher Kana Wiens. \u201cAll the bright colours and noise are meant to chase away evil spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each lion was made up of two students \u2013 one inside the lion head and the other forming the body and tail.<\/p>\n<p>Grade 7 student Kirsten was controlling one of the lion heads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was pretty interesting because I\u2019ve never celebrated with a lion dance before,\u201d she said. \u201cAlso, it was funny because I [could] put my hand out of the mouth and \u2026 grab the red envelope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lions were followed by two students on a drum and a parade of kindergarten and Grade 1 students wearing paper crowns and holding up paper lanterns. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-18474 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sd42.ca\/assets\/media\/Albion-Lunar-New-Year-09.jpg\" alt=\"Albion Elementary students participate in a lion dance for the Lunar New Year.\" width=\"217\" height=\"326\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the Lunar New Year \u2013 me being in the parade \u2013 was actually pretty cool, actually,\u201d said Grade 4 student Naomi. \u201cReally cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wiens organized the parade with Grade 4\/5 teacher Terry Jung, who brought in the lion heads, decorations and the drum. He also taught the students how to do the lion dance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur students were really happy and excited to see their culture being represented at the school,\u201d said Wiens. \u201cOur goal was to show that Lunar New Year is not only celebrated by Chinese communities, but also by South Korean, Vietnamese, and many other communities around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>2025 is the Year of the Snake, the sixth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Year of the Snake means wisdom and transformation,\u201d Naomi said.<\/p>\n<p>In Vietnamese, she added, the Lunar New Year is called T\u1ebft.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe go over to other families in our complex to visit them and to give them red envelopes,\u201d she explained, \u201cand they give us red envelopes filled with money and it\u2019s pretty wholesome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Korea, they use white packets instead of red envelopes, Kirsten said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy favourite part of celebrating the new year is getting white packets because I usually can\u2019t get any money when I want to, so that one is my chance to get money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Grade 5 student Kim says his family celebrates the Lunar New Year by cleaning their home, having a big feast, and wishing his relatives in China a Happy Lunar New Year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe celebrate Lunar New Year because we want to have good luck and we don&#8217;t want any bad luck in our house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sd42.ca\/assets\/media\/Albion-Lunar-New-Year-01.jpg\" alt=\"Albion Elementary students participate in a lion dance for the Lunar New Year.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students line the hallways at Albion Elementary as bright red and yellow lion heads bob up and down to the beats of a drum. The lions are making their way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3501,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions\/3501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/albion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}