Professor Chen Xianfeng is in charge of this year's Lantern Festival at Slippery Rock University. The event on Feb. 12 signals the end of Chinese New Year observances.

SLIPPERY ROCK — A 4,000-year-old tradition will be renewed next month at the Slippery Rock Township Community Center.

The Lantern Festival scheduled for Feb. 12 at the center will signal the end of the Chinese New Year observances.

The New Year begins Saturday (Jan. 28), according to Slippery Rock University geology professor Chen Xianfeng, who is in charge of this year's festival. Chen is part of a group of 13 Chinese faculty members at SRU who have been organizing New Year celebrations since 2007.

Because the traditional Chinese calendar is lunar-based, its New Year's holiday shifts from year to year, but it always begins in January or February.

The holiday marks the start of the new lunar year that begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice and officially ends 15 days later.

Professionals in China usually get seven days off work to celebrate by visiting family and friends, shopping, watching traditional Chinese shows and launching fireworks.

Each New Year coincides with an animal sign from the Chinese zodiac that rotates on a 12-year cycle, 2017 being the year of the rooster.

Specifically, the fire rooster, according to Chen, adding people born this year are thought to be trustworthy with a strong sense of timekeeping and responsibility.

He said Chinese New Year customs date back 4,000 years to the Yao Dynasty, founded in the age of antiquity. Its emperor, Emperor Yao, is often extolled as the morally perfect and intelligent sage-king whose benevolence served as a model for future monarchs and emperors.

Speaking of New Year, Chen said, “It's the biggest holiday on the Chinese calendar.” The predominant color of the festivities is red.

“We honor the deities and we honor ancestors,” Chen said. “Right now (in the days leading up to the holiday) we are cleaning the house thoroughly and decorating with red paper cutouts.”In China, he said, on the eve of New Year, “We would have a family reunion dinner. As a kid, I remember the delicious food. It's just like Christmas dinner.”“After dinner, people stay up all night playing mah-jong or cards and end in the morning making dumplings,” he said.“And we also give money to each child in a red paper envelope called Hong Bao. It's like good fortune, good luck for the children,” he said.During the celebration, Chinese traditionally visit family and friends.“That's when they take time off to go back home,” said Chen, noting in China the holiday is marked by millions of people traveling from cities to their rural hometowns.Chinese authorities predict that between Jan. 13 and Feb. 21, citizens will make 2.5 billion trips by land, 356 million by rail, 58 million by plane and 42 million by sea.The travel isn't as massive as it had been in the past, Chen said, because today people keep in contact with their distant relatives through social media.New Year observances finish with the Lantern Festival, a holiday that marks the final day of the traditional celebrations.During the festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles printed the lanterns.The lanterns themselves can symbolize the people letting go of their past selves and getting new ones, which they will let go of the next year. The lanterns are almost always red to symbolize good fortune. There are many hung for people to admire. Chen said the festival is also marked in China by dragon boat races and firecrackers.Fellow Chinese Slippery Rock faculty member Wei Bien, associate professor of physical and health education, said there are two reasons the organizers are highlighting the end of the holiday rather than the beginning.“Jan. 28 is too close to the beginning of the semester,” said Wei. “Usually, we would celebrate the first day of the New Year to at least the fifth.”Wei said the emphasis on the Lantern Festival allows students time to settle back onto campus.“We're going to attract a lot of Slippery Rock students and people from the neighboring community,” Chen said.Running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the community center, the festival will include Chinese food, interactive children's games and a Chinese calligraphy demonstration.Chen said, “We've invited several musicians to perform traditional Chinese music. Some are from Pittsburgh. Some are from Cleveland, cities with large populations of Chinese.”“We have around 30 Chinese students here and we are doing it for them,” he said. “We get support from the university. This year we got funds.”One of those students is Mengqi Wang, 20, a biology major from the region around the city of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China.This will be her third lantern celebration, and she will be helping attendees practice calligraphy.“I've gone every year I've been here,” said Wang. “I will help people form characters. I will print out the words, tell them what it means and let them print out their own. In China, we put lucky words on the door.”The festival will be a little bit of home, Wang said.“When I first came here I was really homesick. But now because there are several Chinese students and Chinese professors here and I can video chat with my parents, I'm not,” said Wang, who plans to pursue a graduate degree in the U.S. after graduating from SRU.Chen, himself, is also originally from Xinjiang.He lives in Grove City and is married to Hong Zhang. They have a daughter, Cathaleen, 23.“The university is very supportive, so we can enrich the diverse campus culture. We really appreciate it,” Chen said.

Players of traditional Chinese instruments will be invited to this year's Lantern Festival, just as they were to last year's observance in Slippery Rock. The Lantern Festival scheduled for Feb. 12 at the Slippery Rock Community Center will signal the end of the Chinese New Year observances.