This year is a lucky year for Meng Xi: Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year are on the same day.

Xi doesn’t have to choose where to go on New Year’s, also known as the Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year, because she doesn’t have a boyfriend.

“This year is a really hard time for couples to choose [where to go for dinner],” said Xi, a Chinese language junior. “If we’re a couple, and when the Spring Festival’s happening, we will choose which family the couple will go to celebrate. The wife always wants the husband to go with her, but the husband also has his family.”

Luckily, as a foreign exchange student, Xi doesn’t have to worry about that.

Instead, she plans on spending this New Year’s with several friends at a professor’s house to celebrate the most important Chinese holiday.

“Our Chinese teacher here invited my friend and I to go to her home to make dumplings ... and we’ll maybe play cards or play mah johngg [a gambling game] and just chatting,” Xi said.

Originally from Yun Nen, a Chinese province near Tibet, Xi said celebrations back home included things like dragon dances and parades, drum-beating and playing with claw-masks. People of all ages participate in the festivities.

“[In my memory, I was] maybe 5 or 6 my first time to join the activities or join the games,” Xi said. “I really liked it! It was really fun; you can get a prize ticket and you can get some prizes if you can do this game well. Children always like the Spring Festival more than adults because they can get the red envelope that contains money, a popular New Year’s tradition.

“Actually, the most important [difference] is there is no atmosphere here,” Xi said about the difference between the U.S. and China’s celebrations. “In China, everything will be printed as red: red lamp, red envelope, red paper, red bowl, red clothes, red everything. Red is for lucky. Chinese always like red.”

Lucky for Xi, red will be in abundance come Sunday at OU.