The Year of the Dragon has already proved auspicious for Vivian Wong. The 12-year-old enjoyed one of the starring roles in her school’s Lunar New Year celebration Friday as the head of the dragon.

The Grade 7 St. Francis Xavier student marked the special occasion with her classmates in a bilingual English-Mandarin production featuring traditional songs and dances.

Lunar New Year, more typically called Chinese New Year in Vancouver, takes place in January or February—this year Jan. 23—and signifies the coming of spring and new beginnings.

“We had kind of a professional trainer come in and teach us the dance. It was the best experience because it’s also my last year [at St. Francis Xavier],” Wong said, adding, the celebration is “very important because we’re almost all Asian at the school.”

Wong’s father was born in Canada and her mother is from Hong Kong.

Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean cultures are among those who take part in Lunar New Year’s celebrations. On New Year’s Day, adults give children gifts of money in red envelopes and hang lucky messages or wishes in and around their homes and offices, hoping for good fortune throughout the year.

About 90 per cent of students at St. Francis Xavier, a kindergarten-to-Grade 7 independent Catholic school at 428 Great Northern Way, are of Chinese origin so celebrating the culture and language is regarded as particularly important.

At one point the school offered after-school Chinese language classes, but this year it started providing half-hour Mandarin lessons to students during the school day.

Camil Chan’s two children graduated from the school, but he still volunteers. He watched Friday’s celebration and said it served an educational purpose.

“The most important thing is to let the children and the parents learn something about the Chinese culture,” he said.

Principal Brian Fader agrees. “We’re at least 90 per cent ethnically Chinese—some recent immigrants, some second or third generation. [Lunar New Year is] such an integral part of the Chinese culture that we feel it’s important. Plus we have a Mandarin program so it’s just a natural,” he said.

Teachers spent weeks organizing the performances, which included Grade 2 students singing a popular children’s song, “Where is the spring,” which describes spring scenery from children’s eyes and expresses their love for the season, and Grade 5 students pulling up a giant turnip—a staple food for Chinese New Year.

Students also performed the traditional Lion Dance, a highlight of Chinese New Year celebrations, and acted out the story of the Chinese Zodiac—2012 is the Year of the Dragon. The first record of the performance of an early form of the Lion Dance dates to the early Ch’in and Han dynasties in the third century B.C.

“[The event] was quite an undertaking,” Fader said, adding that the school has always been associated with the Chinese community and its origins are in Chinatown.

The Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception from Pembroke, Ont. founded St. Francis Xavier in 1933. The school was located in several locations around Chinatown before it moved, in 2001, to Great Northern Way, following a 20-year fundraising effort.

Its 16 classrooms house about 370 students, who travel to St. Francis Xavier from around the Lower Mainland.

“We get them from all over—Coquitlam, Burnaby, Richmond, the West Side, the West End, North Van,” Fader said. “A lot of the parents work downtown or have businesses in Chinatown. They’re drawn here because of the Chinese cultural aspect.”

Fader noted about 65 per cent of students aren’t Catholic, which is unusual for a Catholic school. “We see ourselves as doing missionary work,” he added.

noconnor@vancourier.com

Twitter: @Naoibh