You don’t have to be of Asian heritage to enjoy the customs and traditions associated with the Lunar New Year, which speaks, with its solar calendar counterpart, to the same human impulses to start anew and turn the symbolic page. Jan. 28 began the Year of the Rooster, which is celebrated in China and the surrounding civilizations it has influenced over the millennia.
With its sizable student population of Asian descent, Parkville School in the Great Neck Public School District is uniquely equipped to pay homage to the holiday whose origins encompass many generations and include the Asian veneration for ancestors, as well as family gatherings, special foods and a multitude of celebratory traditions.
The school’s gymnasium was appropriately decorated, and students learned about the holiday customs at different stations. In the auditorium, they watched traditional Chinese and Korean dances, listened to their classmates engaged in Chinese drumming and also saw a tae kwon do demonstration.