If you missed New Year's Eve, want to learn how to turn vegetables into animals or just want to see papier-mache lions parade around in front of the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, mark your calendars.
Penn will hold its 26th annual Chinese New Year celebration this Saturday at the Museum, ringing in the Year of the Pig with area residents, honored guests and special events all day long.
Festivities will last from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. and are "very family oriented," Tena Thomason, coordinator for special events at the museum, said.
Admission is free for Penn students.
"It is an opportunity to watch one of the most important and unique celebrations of the traditional Chinese year in Philadelphia ," Nancy Steinhardt, curator of Chinese Art at Penn, wrote in an e-mail.
Highlights of the day will include an acupuncture display, calligraphy lessons, a Kung Fu demonstration and vegetable carving by local chef Joe Poon.
"He can take a vegetable and turn it into a bug or a flower," Pam Kosty, a Museum spokeswoman, said.
The festivities will also feature various dance performances, including one by Penn's Pan-Asian Dance Troupe.
For students interested in the museum's Asian art collection, Steinhardt will give a lecture on the display in the rotunda.
The day will conclude with a traditional Chinese parade, highlighted by papier-mache lions marching in front of the museum.
2007 is the year of the pig on the Chinese zodiac.
People born in the year of the pig - such as in 1995 or 1983 - are considered to be "honest, brave and very good students," Thomason said.
Regardless of birth year, though, the celebration - especially the lion parade - is meant to bring good luck, Thomason added.
The museum hopes to see many Penn students take part in the festivities this year.
"We see roughly 2,000 people each year," Thomason said.
"We want people to have a good time," Kosty said. "We've got lots of opportunities for people to interact one on one and to hear great lectures," she said.
"There's great food, too," Kosty added.
