The Chinese Culture Association of Southern California, the Cerritos Chinese School, and Cerritos College drew large crowds during the fifth annual Spring Festival.

The festival had events that showed different cultures around the world, but the festival was based around the Chinese New Year (this year is the year of the rabbit).

“The year you were born has an animal that represents it; also, you will have the characteristics that relates to the year,” Cindy Yen Chen, master of ceremonies for the afternoon, said during the beginning of the event.

The event was pushed back because of the Chinese school’s schedule reasons, which opened the doors to bring in more cultures.

The festival had mini-workshops that gave those in attendance a chance to play games and make art that is popular in the Chinese community.

The attractions of the festival were the performances that were held by the Chinese school, Cerritos Chinese American Citizens Association, and the Chinese Culture Association of Cerritos College.

“I think [the shows] were wonderful. It shows appreciation about the cultures all over the world,” Corey Newman, the DJ of the festival, said.

The first event was the “lion dance” that was held by the Chinese school.

According to Chen, the lion dance in Chinese culture was to scare off the monsters that were to come during the new year.

Another event consisted of Chinese nursery rhymes, which included the first graders of the school performing their own version of “London Bridge” and jump-rope game songs.

Other performances were the Chinese yo-yo tricks, kung fu performances, aerobics, and a “Love Bug” song performance.

The Chinese American Senior Citizens Association choir performed a lullaby titled, “Long Live My Country.”

The youngest member of the choir was 70, and the oldest was 82.

“I’m proud to know that people in our community are still active at that age. Hopefully others will follow their lead,” Chen said.

The Cerritos Dance Department performed a contemporary dance titled, “Slow Me Down.”

Also, Ben Basuni, member of the International Student Association and alumnus Khanh Khuong performed a few popular songs, including “Cater to You” by Destiny’s Child and “Love Song” by Ne-Yo.

“We were just trying to promote Cerritos College students to get more involved, so we just volunteer for the Spring Festival,” Basuni said.

“The event was really easy to put together. We all only had four meetings to get everything put together. Everything just went smoothly,” Chen said.