SPECIAL EVENTS

The Chinese Community Center presents the 2011 Lunar New Year Festival, Saturday, February 5, 10am-4pm, at the Community Center, 9800 Town Park.

The Lunar New Year Festival is a market place of family fun, Chinese cultural awareness, community outreach, and business promotion! Come any enjoy an exciting shopping extravaganza at our cultural bazaar. There will be 60 tables hosting a plethora of Asian foods, cultural artifacts, public service information, and corporate booths for you to shop and enjoy. The entire area will be covered by the City of Houston's tents.

Bunny's Playground:
A special area just for the children that will include 20 games sponsored by the PTO of the Chinese School at the Center including clay work, face painting and much, much more!

Cultural Exhibitions:
Come learn more about the Chinese New Year at the interactive cultural exhibition room of the Festival. Held in the Multi-purpose room on the first floor, come enjoy shows and arts and crafts throughout the day. It will be family fun for all ages!

• * Lunar New Year's Eve Feast Display
• * Arts and Crafts led by the seniors in our Adult Day Program
  • o Origami
  • o Chinese Calligraphy and New Year Lucky Couplets
  • o Write your Chinese Name
  • o Zodiac Balloon Twisting
  • o Lantern Making
• * Chinese School Theater performances all day by our own students

Also featuring:
Archaeological Institute of America, Houston Society presents Ming Fleet Project screening of the film "Sultan's Lost Treasure" at 10:30am, 12:30pm and 2:30pm in Room 251

Description:
"In the middle of the South China Seas, a six-hour voyage from the tiny, oil-rich Sultanate of Brunei, prospectors spot an ancient wreck on the sea bed, half-swallowed up by the sand. An international team of archaeologists dives far down and begins retrieving a unique treasure—not gold or silver, but more than 12,000 intact pieces of Chinese procelain dating from the "golden age" of ceramic production in the 14th Century A.D. The priceless cargo poses countless riddles as the archaeologists seek the identity of the ship and its destination, and the meaning of the strange symbols so delicately figured on the dishes. And as the divers salvage the wreck in the teeth of pirates, looters, and the "bends," they also gradually reconstruct the story of the world's first international trading network - the ultimate ancestor of today's global marketplace." www.pbs.org

In addition, the Archaeological Institute of America, Houston Society will host booths that include activities such as:
1. Create your Own Chinese Coin - children (and adults!) can create their own version of a Chinese coin by decorating a blank coin with numbers or symbols found on Ming dynasty coins (or they may use their own ideas for decoration). The coin is then strung on red ribbon for good luck. Chinese coins from the Ming dynasty have been found at sites in Africa and sites dating to the period of the Roman Empire , demonstrating the extensive reach of Chinese cultural and commercial trade. Coins are a significant tool used by archaeologists to help date a site.

2. Create Rock Art - rocks that have been carved with mysterious geometric lines have been found on every continent of the world, including China . Using river stones and a sharpie pen, children and adults can copy ancient geometric art from China , India , Spain , or Texas ! They can also work to develp a theory about the meaning of this ancient art. We think that its interesting that these geometric lines are found in every culture worldwide - showing how we all have much in common.

3. Excavate an Ancient Chinese Kitchen - Three boxes will be available for attendees to "excavate" that demonstrate what an archaeologist might find if they were excavating at a village in the desert area in western China . Included will be pottery, petrified food, wooden chopsticks, animal bones, and charcoal from cooking fires. Children excavating the box will be lead in a discussion about how climate effects what is found and how artifacts help us gain understanding about the daily life and culture of a group of people.

Finally, each child attending the booth will receive a coloring sheet of a boat that would have been part of the armada lead by Admiral Zheng He on his voyages to the West.

Entertainment:
Starting at 10am and lasting for 6 exciting hours, the large, newly renovated indoor auditorium at the Chinese Community Center will host an array of riveting, beautiful, and inspiring performances to welcome the Lunar New Year. Come and go as you want and enjoy this special program. A children's area will be set up in the back with games, so that parents can fully enjoy the multi-cultural performances.

Be sure to check back frequently to learn more about the exciting program we have in store for the festival!

Among the many performances their will be:

• * Traditional Dragon, Lion, and Zodiac Dances
• * Essence of Multi-cultural performances
• * Face Changing

In addition, the Houston Grand Opera's West + East Program will premiere the first in their series of chamber operas titled Courtside. The Song of Houston project continues with East + West, HGO's four-year program, that celebrates Houston as a meeting place for Eastern and Western cultures. A series of chamber operas will explore the relationship between first- and second-generation immigrants, displacement of war refugees, storytelling traditions and cultural inheritance in Houston. Courtside, the first in this series of chamber operas, chronicles three generations of Chinese Americans as they balance their American pride with their Chinese traditions.

Click here for a detailed schedule of entertainment.

Click here to read about the Chinese Zodiac.

This project is supported in part by the City of Houston Mayor's Special Initiative Grant Program of the Houston Arts Alliance.