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February 10, 2012

Local cultural program celebrates Chinese New Year

STAFF REPORT

A celebration of the Chinese New Year was held at Milford Central School on Sunday.

The festival, which honors the Year of the Dragon, was organized by Milford’s Chinese Mandarin Language and Culture Program. Festivities took place from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and featured guest artists in Asian calligraphy and bonsai, demonstrations in Goju Chinese karate and children’s yoga, Chinese brush painting, origami, a poem presentation, a children’s storybook corner, dancing and a presentation on Zongzi, or stuffed bamboo leaves.

The language and culture program was created last year when Karen Agostino of Hartwick and a group of mothers perceived a need in the community for greater knowledge of Chinese language and culture.

“There are a lot of Asian adoptees here, so we wanted to enrich the community with (knowledge about) Asian culture,” Karen Agostino said before the event.

“More people speak Mandarin than any other language in the world,” Agostino said.

Agostino said she and the other mothers began to search for an instructor in Mandarin Chinese, and found “there was an interest in the community.”

Their search led to Savannah Bao, originally from China and a counselor in the Educational Opportunity Program at the State University of New York College at Oneonta.

The group is divided into two sections one for younger children, one for older children and adults and meets Sunday mornings at Milford Central School.

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