Gadsden student teaches peers about the Chinese New Year
GADSDEN, Ala. — The start of the Lunar New Year is one of the most important holidays of the year for those of Asian descent. An official of the Miami University’s Confucius Institute described it on the school’s website as like “combining Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Super Bowl for Americans.”
The event took place on Feb. 1 this year, and MeiLeigh Mintz, a fifth-grader at John S. Jones Elementary School, decided to share her Chinese New Year traditions for the holiday with her classmates.
MeiLeigh, who was adopted as an 11-month-old from China, talked with each of them about the traditional tale of the Nian monster, which is known for annually attacking villages and destroying their crops.
The legend says the people would gather to scare the monster off with bright lights and loud noises to protect themselves for another year.
MeiLeigh wore a red dress, as red is the color that traditionally scares the Nian monster the most.
“Normally, what I’m wearing would be considered nice clothes that you would wear for weddings and holidays,” she said, describing her outfit. “So typically, I would wear this for the Autumn Moon Festival and for Chinese New Year.”
MeiLeigh told her classmates that each year is signified by a specific animal in the Chinese zodiac. For 2022, this animal is the tiger.
“If you were born in 2010, that was the last Year of the Tiger, which means that this year is considered your lucky year,” she said. MeiLeigh’s mother, Kim Mintz, added, “A lot of the things they celebrate is based on legends. They celebrate it in a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas, where they bring relatives together and the stores will stay closed for two weeks.”
As part of the discussion held by the Mintz family, each class was given a small bag of candy imported from China with different fruit flavors, such as guava and lychee fruit.
However, MeiLeigh’s class received the biggest transformation of all; their classroom was decorated with traditional red paper lanterns, gold and red streamers and door decorations to signify the holiday.
The class got to try traditional Chinese foods from local Asian markets, such as noodles and dumplings.
The Mintz family also brought in Chinese versions of snacks, such as tomato-flavored potato chips and the Chinese version of Cheetos. “The adults will also give out red envelopes to children, which MeiLeigh likes to do as well,” said Kim. “We don’t have money in them, but this year we have candy.”
The grand finale of the day’s festivities came in the form of a fireworks show for the fifth grade, courtesy of the Mintz family. MeiLeigh’s father, Brian Mintz, shot off several different fireworks that could be enjoyed during the day, which made them a bit noisier than fireworks used at night.