Banquet celebrates Chinese New Year

From karaoke to cultural skits, members of the Penn Taiwanese Society began the Chinese New Year with a bang over the weekend at a banquet celebrating the Year of the Rat. Approximately 140 students attended the dinner, held at the Ocean Harbor Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown. "Come celebrate the Year of the Rat with us," said Wharton junior and Society President Jimmy Chen as he kicked off the event. The Society had to compensate for the unexpectedly large crowd by booking tables on two floors of the restaurant. "The point of the banquet was to bring members and non-members together, to educate both Asians and non-Asians in our cultural background and, in general, to have fun," explained College sophomore Ivy Yeh, the banquet's coordinator. To complement the 10-course dinner, the Society encouraged attendees to participate in karaoke -- an integral part of Asian youth culture -- throughout the night. But only two students were brave enough to sing in front of their large audience -- Wharton sophomore Stan Yang and Engineering freshman Bianca Wong. To compensate for the lack of student participation, music from Asian pop stars like Hong Kong singer Jackie Cheung filled the room. The meal included cold cuts of jellyfish and other assorted seafood, seafood soup, jumbo shrimp with walnut, fried chicken, tofu with spinach, Peking-style pork chops, steam fish, beef, fried rice and dessert -- a sweet, chilled soup filled with soft green beans. While everyone seemed to enjoy the food, some, like first-year Engineering graduate student Jenny Sethman, found the dishes surprising. "I've never seen jellyfish [and] chicken prepared in such a way," she said. "They gave us the whole bird, head and all. I expected a buffet of chicken parts." As soon as the crowd finished the dinner, Society officers reassembled the chairs to mark the beginning of the entertainment portion of the event. The officers prepared two skits centering around Chinese culture and history. The first consisted of a choreographed dance to a traditional song entitled "Yue Chin," named after an ancient string instrument played in China. Eight dancers moved in unison to the music. "Yue Chin" is meant to compare the dissonant tones of the instrument to the widening misunderstandings between generations. The second skit illustrated The Story of Nian, an ancient tale depicting an evil monster named Nian who, according to legend, eats people every Chinese New Year. Using comic lines and unique characters, the performers drew laughs from the crowd as they showed how youngsters protected themselves from the monster with small red packets of money. After the skits, the officers auctioned themselves off for six hours of "servitude." Final bids ranged anywhere from $25 to $70, as students won the right to bathroom cleaning, chauffeuring, cooking and other menial tasks. The event ended with a raffle offering the chance to win various candies, posters, CDs and ski tickets.