On my calendar, January 31, 2014 is Chinese New Year. I thought I would take this time to note some of the items that are in the archives that have a Chinese influence. The most notable is the 1933 Tower yearbook, the entire edition has a Chinese theme. What has got me really puzzled is “Why?”  Most of the other yearbooks do not seem to have much in the way of a theme the way this one does. As far as I can determine by looking through the student pictures, I do not  see a student that looks Asian. That is not the case today-there are lots of students from China taking classes here on campus. In fact they make up the largest group of international students at the university. They even have their own student organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did a quick browse through the history of events during that year, nothing stands out as being a major event in China. Hitler was coming into power and US was coming out of the depression, nothing much about the far east.

It just may be that there has always been a fascination with the culture of the Orient. The Junior Prom in 1928 gave all the gentlemen in attendance a silver cigarette humidor with a Chinese dragon design on the cover and for the 1929 J-Prom a set of 4  silver hor d’eurve trays featuring a Chinese dragon was presented.

 

 

To all our Chinese students

Happy New Year (新年快樂)

 

 

 

Pat Higo, Archives and Special Collections Librarian