The McCastlain Ballroom celebrated the Lunar New Year with music, performances from the community and traditional Chinese food from 6 to 9 p.m. on Feb. 9.

The tables in the ballroom quickly filled up as students, faculty and members of the Asian community came together for the Year of the Dragon celebration.

“I saw the posters around campus and it looked fun,” Devin Merryman said.

Guo’ou Zhuang and Zack Smith delivered the opening remarks. 

“We have a fantastic steering committee on our campus, and this wouldn’t have happened without their efforts,” Smith, the director of the Interdisciplinary Asian Studies minor and board member of the UCA Center for Chinese Language and Culture, said.

The event spotlighted the collaboration between the UCA Center for Chinese Language and Culture and the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project.

Smith said, “The Arkansas Chinese Heritage project is a multi-year effort to collect, preserve and showcase the rich history of Chinese Americans in the state of Arkansas. In fact, Chinese communities have called Arkansas home for 150 years, and our project is a multidisciplinary oral history project to share the lived experiences of Chinese Americans who grew up in Arkansas.”

After the opening remarks, the event staged five performances: North Little Rock High School students performed “Dragon Dance,” Qiaozhi Fu and Xinyu Song performed “Joy of Spring,” Jessie Dong and Qingqi Jiang performed “Fisherman’s Song at Dusk” and a string quartet performed “The Evening Primrose” and “Dance of the Golden Snake.”

The performances finished with a kids’ dance, “New Year Wishes.”

Dressing in traditional Chinese clothing, all the participants performed in the ballroom filled with the UCA and the local Chinese community.

Their performances were followed by dinner.

“I think it’s important to have these types of events just because even though you’re not directly involved with the community, it gives a sense of a larger community and lets you meet new people,” Kaya Bonds said.

“I have a deep interest in Asian cultures, specifically East Asia with South Korea, China and Japan,” she said. “So, I was quite excited to see a Chinese event and discover more about that.”

A favorite performance mentioned was “The Evening Primrose,” the song that Jiyuan Xu, Camila Pacheco, Elizabeth Calixto and Carlos Campanur performed. 

“I know the Japanese and Chinese versions, so I love this song,” Arima said.

“Every year the Center for Chinese Language and Culture puts on a big gala to celebrate the Chinese New Year,” Smith said. “A lot of members of our faculty and community at UCA and students celebrate Chinese New Year and it was just a great opportunity to you know, listen to music and be seen and to meet old friends and to have great food.”