A Message to Our Sister City: 长沙加油

2020 February 11

New Haven celebrated Lunar New Year on Saturday, February 8. Lunarfest began with a Parade, including dragons made by students in New Haven public schools—marching from The New Haven Green up Church Street to the Audubon Street neighborhood—where the Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Lion Dance Troupe entertained the crowds and blessed local Chinese businesses with good luck for The Year of the Rat!

Two special moments followed. One, after marching in the parade, new New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker wowed the crowd by making his remarks in Mandarin! He learned Chinese as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer earlier in his career. Then Yale-China President David Youtz spoke, expressing solidarity with New Haven’s sister city Changsha and with the people of Wuhan who were then at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The crowd sent encouragement and good wishes with a chant of “Jia You Changsha! Jia You Wuhan!” 加油长沙！加油武汉！See the entire video of encouragement here.