Every year, when the first new moon in the lunar calendar rises, millions of families across East and Southeast Asia gather to make dumplings and watch the Spring Festival Gala on television next to a feast of fish and signature Chinese dishes. But what do Oxford students from East and Southeast Asia and around the world do on this occasion?
Over the past week, the Oxford community rang in the year of the snake in their own unique ways. Celebrations include themed college events, large-scale performances, festivities organised by the Oxford Union and cultural societies, and informal gatherings with friends. The Oxford Student interviewed a few societies and students who attended these events to learn about their perspective on what it is like celebrating Lunar New Year in a home away from home.
What is the Lunar New Year?
The Lunar New Year celebrates the advent of a new year based on lunar calendars. Lunar New Year celebrations are most commonly associated with China and other Asian countries like South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia.
The Chinese lunar calendar follows a 12-year cycle in which each year is associated with an animal. 2024, for example, was the year of the dragon, while 2025 is the year of the snake. Each Chinese zodiac sign is also linked to one of the five elements in Chinese element theory – earth, wood, fire, gold, and water. 2025 happens to be the year of the wood snake, so those who are born or turn 60 years old this lunar year are predicted by many to be intelligent, organised, and classy.
As 2025 is the year of the snake, it is also associated with a famous romantic Chinese folktale called the “Legend of the White Snake”. In the tale, white snake spirit Bai Suzhen and green snake spirit Xiaoqing transform themselves into beautiful women and decide to experience the world of ordinary humans. At West Lake in southwestern China, Bai falls in love with a poor young man named Xu Xian, and they soon get married. However, a wicked Buddhist abbot becomes upset about their marriage and creates a number of cruel and even deadly obstacles for the enamoured couple. With the power of unconditional love and some help from Xiaoqing, Bai and Xu end up successfully overcoming these obstacles and give birth to a son. In the end, the abbot is defeated by Xiaoqing’s magic and is eaten by a crab, while the new family lives happily ever after.
Now that we have learned about the context of lunar 2025, let’s see – without further ado – what Oxford students did to celebrate this Lunar New Year.
Wolfson Lunar New Year Celebration
To mark the year of the wood snake, many colleges have organised Lunar New Year-themed formal dinners, parties, and common room gatherings. A highlight of these festive college events has to be the Lunar New Year celebration held in Wolfson College’s Upper Common Room on January 29, the first day of the New Year.
Emphasising traditional Southeast Asian customs, attendees of the celebration were invited to take part in a prosperity salad tossing ritual. Prosperity salad is a Lunar New Year’s dish where each ingredient symbolizes wishes – such as success, wellbeing, and wealth – for the new year. As part of the ritual, attendees sat in circles and tossed a concoction of crispy crackers, sesame seeds, peanuts, cucumber, white pepper, spice powder, and plum sauce on a plate with their chopsticks. The goal for everyone was to toss these ingredients as high as possible, and as they did the tossing, they recited their personal wishes, as well as “lao qi lao qi, feng sheng shui qi”, a Chinese motto for luck and progress.
Tossing the prosperity salad was not the only highlight of the event, though: attendees were also handed red envelopes containing money, prosperity cards, and mandarin oranges, and they were able to enjoy a combination of Western and Asian snacks and desserts that included slices of red velvet and chocolate cake, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and Asian almond flour biscuits.
“We have a lot of students from East Asian diasporas who are here and not back in their home countries with families,” Wolfson DPhil student in Education Darshini Nadarajan told The Oxford Student. Also a welfare officer at Wolfson, Nadarajan collaborated with the Chinese Cultural Society and Southeast Asian societies to create a home away from home for these students on this occasion. “The idea was to really create this celebration where everybody can come together and experience different variations of Lunar New Year,” she explained.
Originally from Malaysia, introducing Southeast Asian Lunar New Year customs to the Oxford community means a lot to her. She has been unable to return to her home country for more than five years, missing her family’s Lunar New Year celebrations and even the funeral of her beloved grandmother. “My grandma always said ‘never forget your roots’,” she recalled, adding that her grandmother would also tell her to “give from the heart” and “not have any expectations of return”. Reminiscing about her grandmother’s words of wisdom, Nadarajan realised that something she cherished the most about the event was “the joy of seeing everyone together” – students from multiple colleges attended the celebration, and to her delight, a Wolfson student’s grandmother also showed up.
To make sure every attendee feels at home and enjoys the celebration to the fullest, Nadarajan’s team decided to make the event free for everyone. “When you celebrate with family, the last thing you want to do is think about money,” she told The Oxford Student. She added: “The idea is not about having a certain amount of money and throwing a large, grand event – it’s about working within our means and creating something that’s going to be enjoyable to everyone.”
For event attendee Jiasen Law, a highlight of the event was the prosperity salad tossing. A third-year Physics undergraduate student at University College, Law is originally from Singapore and said this custom is also a “very local tradition” in his home country. “I didn’t get to do it in quite a while,” he remarked, adding: “I miss home, as I wasn’t able to go back for Chinese New Year – this replaces that.”
Another attendee, first-year DPhil student in Environmental Research Bikem Pastine, enjoyed learning about a culture very different from hers. She was delighted she received a prosperity card about love, and she really liked the prosperity salad. “I’ve never had that salad before,” she said. “It was sweet, sour, crunchy – it was so good.”
Oxford Union x Oxford University Chinese Society (OUCS) Chinese New Year event
While attendees of the Wolfson celebration were tossing their prosperity salad, many other Oxford students – both Chinese and non-Chinese – celebrated the occasion at the Oxford Union. Spreading across the Union’s spaces, the event incorporated lantern making, Chinese calligraphy, traditional and contemporary performances, mah-jong (a Chinese game involving 136 to 144 rectangular tiles), Spring Festival Gala streaming, and various Chinese snacks.
“I liked the wide range of the performances in the debate hall and the contrasts between them,” a Master’s student at Pembroke College and Oxford Union member told The Oxford Student. Recalling seeing a TikTok dance performed in modern clothing, as well as modern song performances followed by traditional Chinese instrumental pieces, he remarked: “Even though I personally liked the traditional pieces the most, the best part for me was this diversity of different performances – it shows how traditions evolve over time and that Chinese New Year traditions can still be born in modern times.”
A third-year undergraduate student in English at Exeter College also thought the traditional performances were a highlight of the event. “You don’t see that stuff as much,” he explained. However, another third-year English undergraduate student at Exeter said playing mah-jong for the first time in the Union’s bar was his memorable moment. “It was very confusing at the start, but it was quite fun,” he noted. Admitting he had never had the chance to celebrate Chinese New Year back at home, he also said: “It’s just fun to make the most of these opportunities being here at Oxford and to get a taste of different cultures.”
Unlike for these Pembroke and Exeter students, celebrating Lunar New Year is not an exceptional event for all, like for Qizheng Li, DPhil candidate in Physics at St Cross College. However, to our surprise, he thinks celebrating the occasion at Oxford is more enjoyable than celebrating it with his family in China. “Parents and grandparents are always pushy – they want to know all about you, and they want to ask you whether you are getting married soon. If not, they would recommend their relatives,” he said. “Here, we can enjoy the celebration with our friends and have a really good time.”
A member of both the Oxford Union and OUCS, Li’s favourite part of the event was teaching his British friends how to play mah-jong. “They were facing each other at the table, with the mah-jong tiles scattered around – they didn’t know how to deal with it,” he recalled. “So, I came and asked them if they wanted to learn how to play the game, and they said: ‘Why not?’ They had already drunk half a pint of beer,” he added.
According to Li, the sense of community is at the centre of Lunar New Year festivities. “It’s a great opportunity to strengthen the Chinese communities abroad, particularly at Oxford,” he told The Oxford Student.
Regarding the significance of organising a Lunar New Year celebration at the Union, OUCS president and second-year undergraduate student in Engineering at Trinity College Tommy Zhang said that as overseas Chinese students, it is their job to “bring the original interpretation of the Chinese story to western people and everyone”. He said: “The UK is a country with very diverse cultural backgrounds, but sometimes Chinese culture and language can be a bit misinformed – as we are here for education, we can give a true depiction of what actual Chinese people do, play, or listen to.”
Arranging the celebration did come with some challenges, though. A week before the event, a weather forecast predicted rain for the day of the event, forcing the organisers to cancel their plans for fireworks and move the performances – which were originally to be held in the courtyard – indoors. However, according to Zhang, the process of organising the festivity was generally smooth, and they managed to obtain all the equipment they needed.
Even though some adjustments had to be made to accommodate weather changes, Zhang and his fellow OUCS friends still did their best to make the event an “immersive experience”. “The activities at the event are what we actually do with our families in China when we celebrate Lunar New Year – for the Chinese attendees, we would like them to feel at home, and for the non-Chinese attendees who don’t know what Chinese New Year entails, we would like them to immerse in the environment of what it is actually like to celebrate Chinese New Year,” Zhang emphasised.
Another co-organiser of the event Dane Luo, who is a Farthings Scholar in Administrative Law at Pembroke College, told The Oxford Student it means a lot for him to be part of the organising team. “I am delighted that the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and that the event was an educational experience for everyone,” he said, adding: “I am very proud that this was a chance for Oxford students to have an all-round traditional experience.”
2025 Spring Festival Gala by the Oxford Chinese Students & Scholars Association (OXCSSA)
On the evening of January 31, around a thousand Oxford students and guests attended the 2025 OXCSSA Spring Festival Gala in Oxford’s New Theatre. With a start time of 6pm, the show was also attended by guests such as Labour Party politician and former Lord Mayor of Oxford Mark Lygo, Deputy Lord Mayor of Oxford Tiago Corais, and Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Young People’s Services John Howson, and it featured sponsored gifts from major companies such as Huawei, iQIYI, and Tianjin Airlines for selected audience members.
At the start of the show, the Minister for Development at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Minister for Women and Equalities at the Department for Education Anneliese Dodds, New College’s warden Miles Young, and Education Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy Jianjiang Kuang delivered speeches to welcome the New Year.
“On our college’s buildings, we actually have a stone gargoyle of a snake installed last year – it’s a very long Oxford tradition to ward off evil spirits, but it also comments on the fact that snakes are an important part of the natural world,” Young said. “I wish you a very happy New Year – Gong Xi Fa Cai!”
“We would especially like to extend our gratitude to Mr Tiago Corais for keeping Oxford so attractive to international students, making our campus safe and sound,” Kuang remarked. “We would also like to extend our appreciation to Mr Miles Young for taking care of the Chinese students in Oxford.”
In his speech, Kuang also noted that there are 200,000 Chinese students in the UK, about 2,000 of whom are studying at Oxford University. He mentioned that the University has had successful collaborations with Chinese universities or institutions in areas such as climate change, energy, and sustainable development. Regarding China-UK relations, Kuang told the audience: “China is reinforcing international openness and educational cooperation – we hope that universities conduct more exchanges with Chinese institutions and that there will be more cooperation between the two nations.” As closing remarks, Kuang wished the attendees “happiness, success, good health, and good wealth” in the year of the snake – an animal symbolising good luck and auspiciousness in Chinese culture.
After the speeches, attendees were able to enjoy a variety of performances, including Chinese folk orchestra, poem, and dance recitals, a kung fu show, Chinese comedy acts, a magic show, a musical about student life in Oxford, a fashion show featuring historical Chinese costumes, and a demonstration of Beijing, Shanghai, and Sichuan operas, the latter of which also involved the blowing of real fire. As part of the gala, Oxford’s internationally acclaimed lower-voice acapella group Out of the Blue also performed two pieces, one of which was entirely in Mandarin.
“The show was amazing – I got to learn a lot about dance culture and the singing,” third-year DPhil student in Engineering at St Cross College Adi Pradeep told The Oxford Student. This gala being his very first Lunar New Year show, Pradeep said: “My stereotypical image of China was one that is much more modernised compared to anywhere in the West, but I’ve got to know that there is a huge culture behind it – this show was a new experience altogether.”
A non-Chinese attendee of the gala, Pradeep still saw similarities between Chinese culture and his own culture. “I’m from India – the guy changing his face and blowing fire in the Sichuan Opera is something we also have in a dance form,” he noted.
As a general remark, he told The Oxford Student: “If I’m still in Oxford next year, I’ll definitely come to next year’s Lunar New Year gala, because this was pretty amazing.”
A performer in the student life musical, Oxford Diary, at the gala, second-year DPhil student in Experimental Psychology at Somerville College Yang Gao said her highlight of the show was performing with others from the Oxford Chinese Musical Theatre Society on stage. “We all have the same passion,” she said.
Having rehearsed a lot to prepare for the performance, Gao noted: “I’m just glad everything came all together in the end.” The group faced scheduling challenges while rehearsing. “It’s a big group of us with 11 people, so it was challenging to get people to rehearse at the same time.” That said, they managed to do it, and one of the perks of the preparation process ended up being the opportunity for them to tour all the colleges where the rehearsals took place.
Gao also had her favourite scenes from the musical: “The Non-Stop song from Hamilton was adapted really, really well to student life, but the scene from Dear Evan Hansen was also adapted quite well – it’s also about school life.” She added: “The Dear Evan Hansen adaptation really resonated with how we all experience Oxford – it was about Oxford students seeing the northern lights at Port Meadow, and we all know that last autumn, so many people actually went to Port Meadow to see the northern lights in Oxford.”
As a graduate student of Chinese descent, Gao’s message to fellow Chinese graduate students at Oxford is the following: “Enjoy music, musicals, dancing, and performing in the new year!”
Oxford University Asia-Pacific Society (OUAPS) Lunar New Year Soirée
The Oxford University Asia-Pacific Society held their popular Lunar New Year Soirée on 31 January. Taking place at The Varsity Club, the event kicked off to a start at around 11pm, featuring a photographer and mix of pop, hip hop, tech house, and K-pop tracks for attendees to dance to.
Wearing black tie or cultural outfits, participants also had the chance to order a variety of creative cocktails and pose for photographs and selfies on The Varsity Club’s rooftop.
Lunar New Year Buffet by the Oxford Postgraduate Society
On February 2, a number of Oxford graduate students gathered in Trinity College’s Middle Common Room for an abundant feast of traditional Chinese dishes such as black pepper chicken, mapo tofu (soft tofu cooked in a flavoursome spicy sauce), prawns with mushroom, tofu with black bean sauce, Peking duck with wrappers, and spring rolls. Organised by the Oxford Postgraduate Society, the event – also known as the Lunar New Year Buffet – also included a wide range of drinks and Chinese calligraphy.
“It was very nice to get exposed to this cultural experience,” Master’s student in Economics for Development at Pembroke College and event attendee Lizi Maisashvili told The Oxford Student. “I also enjoyed meeting new people with whom I was able to share this celebration,” she added.
As a graduate student at Oxford, Maisashvili appreciated the opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds at this graduate student-focused event. “I had a conversation with so many interesting people studying different subjects with different cultural experiences – this is what makes a graduate-level experience more special,” she said.
According to event attendee and Executive MBA student at Exeter College Catherine Xu, the food at the event was “very well-cooked and delicious”. “It’s from a real Chinese restaurant,” she remarked. Indeed, the high quality of the food at the event was acknowledged by multiple attendees, including fourth-year Computational Biology DPhil student at Linacre College and president of the Postgraduate Society Lyle Hopkins.
Although she was celebrating Lunar New Year away from home, Xu did not feel lonely. “We have such a good community – they are all my sisters and brothers in this big family,” she said. “The organising team put a lot of effort into all the preparations, which I really appreciate,” she added.
“When I came to Oxford, I realized that while there were many events for undergraduate students at Oxford, there weren’t many events targeting graduate students – that’s why I started organizing events at my college,” organiser of the Lunar New Year Buffet and Master’s student in Comparative Social Policy at Trinity College Ama Munkhbayar noted. In addition to the feast, drinks, and calligraphy activities, Munkhbayar wanted to decorate the Middle Common Room for a more festive atmosphere: “I wanted to make everything look nice, and I’ve also added flags from various countries so that everyone feels included.”
As Oxford – and the rest of the world – stepped into the year of the wood snake, Munkhbayar said: “May this year bring you all lots of joy and good health, and may you all slide forward like a snake through this year with purpose and ease!”
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