The Chinese New Year already started in late January. “But many Chinese students were in China at the time, and it was in the middle of an exam period, so we moved it”, says Anqi Li, board member of international student association Cosmos, in a packed room in Chinese restaurant Umi Kaiseki. It’s the first time Cosmos celebrates Chinese New Year, and the event was organized with the help of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Eindhoven (ACSSE).

At Chinese New Year, it’s a tradition to make dumplings with the entire family, which is why non-Chinese participants are in for an express workshop. Some twenty international students from countries including Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, France, and Germany are taught how to fold a cabbage and pork meat mixture into sheets of dough. Tsvetina Kirova, a Fontys student of Computer Science: “We have a similar dish in Bulgaria, so this isn’t too hard for me.”

And while the non-Chinese are working on their dumplings, the Chinese crowd slowly fills the rest of the room. TU/e PhD candidates Wang Miao, Shihuan Zou (Electrical Engineering), Shuli Wang (Mechanical Engineering), and their working friend Ruizhi have come to meet new people. Zou: “We’ve already celebrated our New Year with our families, but sometimes it’s just hard to meet new people.”

Because there are far more Chinese people than the approximately thirty people of other nationalities, there’s no immediate mixing. But the guessing game, where one candidate has to explain a word and the other is supposed to guess what it is, proves an icebreaker. During the performance of Malay student of Mechanical Engineering Sheryl Latif and a Chinese student, hilarity ensues. “Oh, you’re so bad”, Latif sighs mockingly after her team member says French fries are a typical cinema snack.

Anqi Li: “Chinese students can be shy because they’re insecure about their English. Their entertainment culture is also quite different”. Yan Li, Phd candidate at TU/e and chairman of ACSSE, agrees: “Chinese students love to get together and eat. They’re not used to go out and drink like most other students do. As a result, many Chinese students don’t really have ways to get in touch with other students.”

Julie Hornix (a recent Industrial Design graduate from the Netherlands) and Rhys Duindam (lecturer at Industrial Design) are excited about meeting the Chinese guests. Duindam: “We’ve been on a study trip to China last summer, and being here feels similar. The volume, the chaos, the enthusiasm – wonderful.”