How did I spend this Chinese New Year? As a host — along with my Chinese husband, John — for our university’s “Chinese Night” on Feb 13, 2010, here in the mountain West of the US. It’s not CCTV’s Spring Festival Party (perhaps, thankfully so!), but it’ll do. 
My Chinese husband, John, and I dressed in auspicious red silk to host our university's Chinese New Year celebration.
We had more than 12 programs to entertain the audience that evening. Here are a few of my own favorites.
The lion dance opened our Chinese New Year's Eve with a roar!
A taiji sword demonstration was part of a martial arts show.
Three young students played Chinese yo-yo for the audience.
A sea of qipaos graced the stage during the Chinese New Year fashion show.
Most of all, John and I enjoyed working with the Chinese students.
Happy year of the tiger! 虎年吉祥!
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Is that your wedding qipao? I’m not sure I’ll ever have a chance to wear mine again!
I’m glad I was never asked to host an event like that. My Chinese isn’t good enough and I don’t like being in front of an audience. Looks like the university put on a nice show.
@Jessica — yes, that is my wedding qipao (well, one of them — in the tradition of having 3 dresses, I got two qipao made, but that’s another story…). It was nice to have an opportunity to pull it out of the closet, dust it off and play “dress up” for once. I hope you’ll have the chance to do it yourself — no formal banquets at your school, I take it?
@Chinamatt — thanks for the comment. Actually, I should edit the entry, because we were hosts…in the US. My husband goes to school in Idaho, so the program was in English. No Chinese issue here.
I definitely get stage fright, but we agreed to do it because the community really needed us (the theme was East-West family). I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I expected, though admittedly I needed a few days to recover because of exhaustion!!
Good stuff Jocelyn! Gongxi fa cai!
@Jessica I bet you could wear your qipao on any occasion you would wear a gorgeous dress.
Everything looks beautiful Jocelyn. That’s really cool.
@Thandelike, thanks for the comment. Gongxi facai right back at you!
And good call…indeed, qipaos are great for any occasion that calls for a little formality. Or, sometimes, just putting one on will make any ordinary night something extraordinary.
@Melissa, thanks for posting, and glad you enjoyed the photos.
I don’t know how I ended up missing this post about your CNY celebration until now. I like the look of your QiPao.
Thanks for the comment, Priscilla, and no worries — a lot of us have been busy this past week celebrating Chinese New Year. Anyhow, I’m glad you enjoyed seeing the pictures.
[...] the risk of revealing my own location, I live in a humble Idaho college town, yet we put on a huge Chinese New Year celebration every year at the university (in fact, it’s so explosively Chinese that people reading this [...]