【Shanghai Daily】City universities help stranded students celebrate Chinese New Year's Eve

While most families inShanghai get together for the Chinese New Year's Eve, many had to spend the dayaway from home.

But the city'suniversities have prepared big dinners, presents and various activities to makesure that students feel at home.

At East China NormalUniversity, more than 3,000 students stayed on its two campuses for the ChineseNew Year for different reasons. Some of them stayed for working in labs; somewere stuck in Shanghai because their home town is locked down due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.

The university prepared28 different dishes for the New Year's Eve dinner, and a party was organized bythe students to entertain themselves.

A student from Thailand,whose Chinese name is Liu Chenglong, said that he was very familiar withChinese New Year traditions as his mother is Chinese.

"I felt reallyhappy that I could spend such an important day with my fellow students,"he said. "Because of the pandemic, I couldn't reunite with my family forthese past two years, but the campus feels like home anyway."

At East China Universityof Science and Technology, dormitories were decorated with lanterns, paper-cutwindow decorations and new year couplets. A tiger doll was given to everystudent as a new year gift from the university. As most of the students stayingon campus are from the northwestern Shaanxi Province, pita bread was includedin the food package given to the students.

Students from the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics spent an artisticand environmentally-friendly New Year's Eve as they learned to paint onring-pull cans. Li Xionggang, a ring-pull can painting master, visited thecampus and became their lecturer of the day.

"My son graduatedfrom this university and he is now doing the painting with me," Li said."I hope that the young students can learn the significance of art andenvironmental protection."

While students enjoyed awarm, entertaining and well-fed day, chefs for airline companies started theirwork from early morning to make sure that passengers could enjoy a better mealduring the holiday.

The Hongqiao center ofEastern Airlines Catering Co Ltd is providing more than 20,000 package mealsdaily during the holiday. Many are traditional festive foods, such asrice-pudding, egg dumplings and rice cakes.

"Our 20 chefs willwork all day to complete dozens of processes, from cleaning the raw ingredientsto sealing the meal boxes, to providing the meals, including main courses, sidedishes and fruits, on time," said Zhang Ting, an official with thecompany. "It's actually the busiest time of the year."