NYU Shanghai welcomed over 50 study away students to campus just in time to celebrate the Spring Festival together. They were among over 140 study away students studying at NYU Shanghai this semester. The students, who arrived from NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi, as well as other schools, including Columbia University and Spelman College, got a chance to experience China’s biggest holiday season and travel around the country before the semester began.
While much of the campus was empty as students were traveling or visiting their families during the winter break, a team of staff and students gave the study away students a warm welcome at the residence halls.
This is the first time NYU Shanghai has organized activities for study away students to celebrate the holiday. “We wanted to create a family-style atmosphere and also create a good event for study away students to mingle with NYU Shanghai students,” said Study Away Programs Specialist Milly Yin, who arranged the activities with colleagues from New Student Programs and Residential Education and Housing. “We’re so pleased the students were able to have a really unique experience,” she said. “I’m very grateful to all of our colleagues for taking time during the holiday to create that festive and homey atmosphere for the students.”
Staff members and study away orientation ambassadors brought along their family members to join the fun. Zhuang Rong, the mother of study away orientation ambassador Coco Hao Xinai ’25, loved helping the students try their hand at dumpling making. ”Watching international students laugh as they fumbled with dumpling-making, I saw how a simple dish could bridge cultures, and bring warmth, joy, and connection,” she said.
Everyone enjoyed sampling different varieties of dumplings, including some with purple skins made with purple sweet potato. “Everyone was having a lot of fun both making and eating the dumplings, talking to each other,” said Christian Gil, NYU ’26. The students also tried their hand at Chinese calligraphy, traditional paper cutting, and even learned to play mahjong.
Study away students took advantage of the weeklong holiday to travel around Shanghai and China. Christian, who studied four years of Chinese in high school, put his skills to the test, eating at halal restaurants and visiting Longhua Temple to light incense at midnight on Chinese New Year’s Eve.
Daylin Layne NYU ’26, who grew up celebrating Lunar New Year with his Thai family, said he enjoyed seeing the red street decorations and families visiting the Bund together wearing red outfits. “It was just very community, very wholesome, very cherished,” he said. “I was thoroughly impressed.”
Daylin traveled by high speed train to the nearby city of Changzhou with several other study away students and spent two days touring the city with Victor Zhang Yunhe ’25. “I saw the fireworks and the firecrackers all over the street,” he said. “It was cool seeing stuff that I learned about actually happening in the place where the tradition originated from.”
Several NYU Shanghai students from Shanghai and surrounding cities opened their homes to study away students, giving them a first hand glimpse of the holiday festivities.
Renata Wang Yuqing ’28 hosted several students at her family’s home in the Qibao district of Shanghai. During the day, she took them to Qibao Ancient Town and later they enjoyed a dinner at home, watched the popular Chunwan gala TV show together, and played mahjong and riddle games.
The experience turned out to be as memorable for her family as it was for their guests. “It was not a unilateral culture exporting, but truly an interactive process where friends from around the globe also brought their own observations and understandings of the culture,” she said. “When I saw my grandma and those foreign friends getting along, who share no common language, I realized a cross-cultural and cross-generational communication is certainly possible.”
For study away student Rhys Green, playing mahjong with Yuqing’s grandmother was a highlight. “When we were leaving, she was like, ‘you have to come back in like a couple of weeks to show me your progress,’” she said. “Her family made us feel like we were like one of her family. It was really, really nice.”