Last Wednesday, Jan. 29, the Providence community celebrated the start of the Lunar New Year, participating in activities ranging from exchanging good-luck envelopes to watching lion dances. The celebrations mark the beginning of the Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese zodiac.
“The Lunar New Year is the biggest holiday in Chinese culture,” explained Jeannie Salomon, founder and executive director of the Cultural Society for Entrepreneurship, Bilingualism, Resources and Inspirations.
But the celebration is not limited to the Chinese community, she added. The Lunar New Year is also celebrated by other communities, including Vietnamese and Korean people.
“When it comes to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, different ethnic groups celebrate a little differently,” Salomon said.
“A lot of our traditions come from legends,” she added.
One common celebratory method is the use of firecrackers. This tradition stems from the story of a monster that terrorized villages the night before Lunar New Year, Salomon explained. But according to the legend, the monster was driven away using firecrackers.
Another Lunar New Year tradition is the lion dance, which is performed every year to bring good luck and drive away evil spirits.
Michelle Cheng, founder and owner of Ceremony, hosted a lion dance event at the cafe’s Brook Street location in collaboration with the R.I. Kung Fu Club on Feb. 2.
At the event, the two lions raced in a boba-chugging competition. Both lions then chomped down on lettuce and spat it back at the audience. The recipients of the leaves are considered to be blessed with prosperity and good fortune.
Cheng, who hosts this lion dance every year, strives to make the celebration “open and welcoming to all,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.
“We want people to feel like they belong, whether they grew up celebrating Lunar New Year or are experiencing it for the first time,” she added. “We’re inviting the broader Providence community to see, acknowledge and respect our traditions. That visibility matters.”
Cheng hopes that those celebrating the holiday far from home can gather at Ceremony to share the Lunar New Year experience with others.
“When I immigrated to the U.S., my family always felt the absence of nián wèi (年味),”she wrote. Nián wèi (年味), which directly translates to “year flavor,” refers to the festive atmosphere surrounding Lunar New Year celebrations.
“I know there are many others — immigrants, international students and those far from home — who feel that same longing for connection during this time,” Cheng added.
The lion dance is a method of connecting community members — regardless of their ethnicity or cultural background, explained Luyi Shao, founder and director of RIKFC.
“It’s not an Asian thing,” he said. “It’s a good people thing.”
The purpose of the lion dance is to ward off negative energy while “bringing good luck and good energy,” said Eric Ko ’25, a lion dancer at RIKFC. “That’s why a lot of our music is incredibly loud, to ward away all the negativity and bad luck.”
For Rhode Island-native Joshua Wang ’25, dancing with RIKFC helped him “tap into (his) Chinese culture in a state that is not very Asian,” he said.
“Being able to participate in these types of activities on a yearly basis has been one of the fondest memories that I’ve had growing up,” he added.
Other Providence institutions organized similar celebrations to Ceremony’s lion dance. On Tuesday, the South Providence Library hosted a Lunar New Year celebration that included lion dancing, traditional Asian food and other activities.
At the celebration, children made lion puppets for the lion dance and engaged with different reptiles during an interactive snake show in honor of the Year of the Snake.
This Saturday, RIKFC is also performing the lion dance at the Garden City Center in Cranston.
“There’s a growing curiosity and appreciation for these traditions outside the (Asian American Pacific Islander) community,” Cheng said. “Fear comes from what we don’t know. The more we can create opportunities for cultural exchange, the more understanding and connection we build.”
