Happy Lunar New Year!

Potomac celebrated the Lunar New Year with lots of noise and a delicious dim sum lunch. Whether on campus or with family, members of our community have been joyfully welcoming in the Year of the Tiger. Lower School students read books and met with guests via Zoom to learn about Lunar New Year. Middle School students greeted the holiday with their traditional dragon parade, and Mr. McNeil’s fifth grade students were assigned the task of cleaning their rooms to make way for good luck! IS students enjoyed a lion dance performed by the Tai Yim Kung Fu School and learned so much about this tradition, like how having lettuce thrown on you is good luck and that different regions of China have different kinds of lion dances. 

Our community members also celebrated at home and with their own family traditions. Elaina Song ‘25 says, “We make dumplings, watch Chinese TV, and call my grandparents and get red envelopes.” Ella Lu ‘25 says, “We don't really do much anymore, but we get red envelopes and we FaceTime my grandparents.”

Lower school first grade teacher Shing-Wai Koo reflects on her family’s traditions of gathering together, eating dim sum, throwing red money envelopes into the lion’s mouth during the lion dance, and hanging the red and gold Chinese calendar her mother insists on hanging on the door. When asked what she hopes others know about Lunar New Year, Ms. Koo says, “The idea that there is another calendar is still pretty foreign. I used to make my introductory fun fact that I have 2 birthdays just so I can share this awesome calendar with others.”

Juna Kim McDaid, assistant head of school for academics, whose family is originally from South Korea, remembers how confusing it was when she was little that her grandparents’ birthdays were always on a “different” day of the year and that they celebrated the new year twice. She says, “When my grandparents were still alive, we celebrated on Lunar New Year with the traditions of gathering family, wearing hanboks, bowing to elders, getting well wishes for the new year and money envelopes, and eating tteokguk (rice cake soup). Now, we do all of these Korean traditions on January 1 since that is when our family can get together.” 

US math teacher and grade 11 dean Julie Wong says, “As a child, we couldn't necessarily celebrate LNY at the right time due to school, but we always had a week off in February (the week of President's Day), so we would use that week to travel to see family, and the time was always spent celebrating LNY with lots of food, dragon dances and lion dances, red envelopes, firecrackers, and superstitions around cleaning, washing my hair, and wearing white. In my twenties, I didn't do much to celebrate, but after living in Asia for 3 years, LNY has become a bigger deal for me. Now, it's about family and food!”

However you celebrate Lunar New Year, we wish you the beginnings of a year full of good luck!