Kickstart 2021 with CultureFest! Lunar New Year
PHILADELPHIA — Presented in partnership with Send Chinatown Love, the 40th annual CultureFest! Lunar New Year festival at the Penn Museum is going virtual in 2021. Throughout January, nearly 25 activities will lead up to one of the most important holidays celebrated in many Asian cultures. Lunar New Year is widely recognized by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Tibetan communities in Philadelphia. Designed for everyone to learn more about Lunar New Year and diverse cultural traditions, the month-long line-up of live virtual events includes:
Thursday, January 7 | Extraordinary Food Finds Among Philly Asian Markets, 5:30–6:15 PM
In an online happy hour, Asian Markets of Philadelphia blogger David Dettmann from Penn’s Center for East Asian Studies shares his expertise and love of Asian grocery stores across the city. Streamed on Facebook Live. FREE.
Sunday, January 10 |Culture Films: The Wandering Chef, 2:00–4:00 PM
The “Wandering Chef,” Jiho Im, creates 108 dishes—a culinary representation of the 108 agonies of life in Buddhism—in 24 hours. Pay-what-you-wish.
Tuesday, January 12 | At-Home Anthro LIVE: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac, 1:00–1:30 PM
Participants search for animals from the Chinese Zodiac calendar among artifacts in the collections. FREE. Other free, downloadable At-Home Anthropology projects include: Craft Recycled Cardboard Dragons, Explore the Zodiac Animals, and more.
Thursday, January 14 | A Round Table with Send Chinatown Love, 6:00–7:00 PM
This online conversation features a team of twenty-somethings from New York who organized a show of support for the immigrant-run businesses in Chinatown. FREE.
Wednesday, January 20 | World Wonders: Trip to China and Beyond, 4:00–5:00 PM Children ages 5-12 learn basic Mandarin greetings, play an interactive game to address stereotypes and misconceptions, and gain a richer understanding of Chinese culture. FREE.
Wednesday, January 27 | Virtual Archaeological Adventures, 10:00 AM–1:00 PM
Ideal for families learning at home, this celebration of Chinese New Year Traditions includes live virtual sessions—along with activities that can be completed at any time. $15 per family.
Thursday, January 28 | Behind the Lion Dance, 6:00–7:00 PM
This virtual talk and demonstration show how communities around the world bring the iconic lion dance to life each year in a colorful parade with elaborate costumes. FREE.
In addition, the Penn Museum has partnered with Tracey Wang Stuligross of TranquiliTEA Temple to create a Handmade History Kit: Wellness Tea, with seven tea samples, reusable tins, a reusable infuser, a jar of locally produced wildflower honey, and information about the health benefits of each tea blend. Available at the Penn Museum Shop for $43, the kit includes a live virtual event, Tea: Tradition and Medicine, on Saturday, January 30.
Other online activities include making Year of the Ox masks, coloring sheets, and Digital Daily Digs, which tell stories about artifacts in the Museum’s Asia Galleries, like the Crystal Ball, Foo Lions, and the Fudo Statue, in three-minute videos each day on Facebook at 1:00 PM.
The full CultureFest! Lunar New Year line-up can be found here.
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About the Penn Museum
The Penn Museum’s mission is to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our University of Pennsylvania, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices.
Through conducting research, stewarding collections, creating learning opportunities, sharing stories, and creating experiences that expand access to archaeology and anthropology, the Museum builds empathy and connections across diverse cultures
The Penn Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm. It is open until 8:00 pm on first Wednesdays of the month. The Café is open Tuesday-Thursday, 9:00 am-3:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am-3:00 pm. On Sundays, the Café is open 10:30 am-2:30 pm. For information, visit www.penn.museum, call 215.898.4000, or follow @PennMuseum on social media.
About Send Chinatown Love
Send Chinatown Love’s mission is to create a digital community for Chinatown’s restaurants to sustain themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The organization seeks to give merchants an online platform who otherwise wouldn’t have one. In the long-term, their goal is to build a community of Asian American restaurants that can become self-sustaining digitally.