The Journal Gazette

Posted on Sun, Feb. 18, 2007

Cultural celebration

In Chinese New Year tradition, the year 2007 is the year of the pig.

In honor of the Chinese New Year, about 200 people attended a celebration at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne’s Walb Student Union Ballroom on Saturday.

“The Chinese New Year celebration is the biggest holiday in China,” said Wen Ting Shen, one of the masters of ceremonies for the event.

The Fort Wayne Chinese Families and Friends Association and IPFW’s Diversity and Multicultural Affairs office sponsored the event, which featured traditional Chinese New Year music, dance and traditions, as well as Chinese food.

The ballroom was filled with Chinese New Year decorations and banners displaying large black Chinese characters hand-painted by Yifei Pan, president of the Fort Wayne Chinese Families and Friends Association and a math professor at IPFW.

The celebration is the largest Chinese cultural event in Fort Wayne, Pan said.

“The event keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Pan, who has been planning the celebration for two months, said. “The university providing a facility like this is very great.”

– Megan Hubartt