Pitt to Celebrate Chinese New Year Feb. 18 with Coffeehouse and Spring Festival

PITTSBURGH—Raise a cup of tea in celebration of 2005, the year of the green rooster. On Feb. 18 from 4 p.m. until midnight, Pitt's Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) in conjunction with the Office of International Services (OIS) will sponsor a Chinese coffeehouse and spring festival on the first floor of William Pitt Union (WPU), 3959 Fifth Ave., Oakland, to celebrate the Chinese holiday Americans know as Chinese New Year. The coffeehouse—part of OIS' International Coffeehouse Series cultural events series held twice each semester—is an opportunity to learn about traditional and contemporary Chinese culture through calligraphy, paper-cutting, and dumpling-making demonstrations. A slide show of China and other activities sponsored by the East Asian Library within Pitt's University Library System are also part of the festival. Snacks and hot tea will be provided.

Nicole Tao, the 2004 Miss Pennsylvania National Teenager titleholder, will host the spring festival portion of the event, which will begin with a moment of silence in remembrance of those who perished in the Dec. 26 tsunami in South Asia. Donations will be accepted for the tsunami relief effort that is being coordinated by Pitt's Graduate Schools of Public Health and International Affairs. The festival also will include an hour of stage performances by the Pittsburgh Chinese School, the Oriental Dancing School, the New Moon Orchestra, and the Organization of Chinese Americans; a Central China Television (CCTV) broadcast; screenings of the Chinese movies Kongfu Hustle (2004) and A World Without Thieves (2004); and karaoke. The schedule of events is as follows:

4-6 p.m. Chinese coffeehouse, Kurtzman Room

6-7:30 p.m. Stage show, Assembly Room

7 p.m-midnight CCTV broadcast, Ballroom

Chinese movies, Assembly Room

Karaoke, Kurtzman Room

7:30 p.m. Refreshments provided by the Oriental Super Buffet-McKnight Road, Kurtzman Room

Additional support is provided by Pitt's Asian Studies Center and the Graduate and Professional Students Association. For more information, e-mail Jamie Rayman, assistant director for programming in OIS, at jbrayman@pitt.edu, or Xiaojing Wang, graduate student researcher in Pitt's Department of Human Genetics and president of Pitt's CSSA chapter, at xiaojing.wang@hgen.pitt.edu.

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2/15/05 tmw