Students and students' unions across the country have been celebrating Chinese New Year. This was an excellent example of how we can use celebrations and events to share cultures and aid integration in our institutions.
Heres's a great example from the University of Huddersfield:
On the 23rd of January we celebrated at University of Huddersfield Student’s Union the Chinese New Year 2012, year of the Dragon. The evening started with a traditional Chinese Buffet to please our Chinese and non-Chinese guests (who were a good mix of home students, international students and staff across the University). The agenda for the evening consisted of a paper cutting competition where people of the audience participated to demonstrate their skills on this ancient Chinese tradition to win a prize; later on the attendants were surprised by a typical Chinese performance, The Lion Dance, which was very interactive. Some Chinese students commented that “looking at the Chinese Lion Dance really makes me feel like I’m back home in China”, although not only the Chinese guests enjoyed it as everyone were very happy and enjoying themselves during the performance. Students from the Chinese Society (CSSA) organized more performances for the evening such as cross talks and singing; finally the celebration closed with a party where all the attendants could dance and enjoy themselves. Both home and international students commented that the Chinese New Year celebration was “awesome” and how much they are now looking forward to having more events of this kind near in the future.