NERI bids farewell to the Year of the Dragon, welcomes Year of the Snake

For the first time, NERI brought together colleagues, partners, students and staff in welcoming the Lunar New Year 2013 - Year of the Black Water Snake.

The Lunar New Year (LNY) or Spring Festival is widely celebrated by all Chinese around the world. It is the grandest and the most important festival for the Chinese people... a time for families to get together.

At NERI, the celebration included putting up of Chinese decorations, sharing LNY goodies and doing the Lo Hei - a tradition of prosperity toss of good fortune using Yu Sheng or Fish Salad that symbolises 'an abundance of wealth and long life'. To the Institute, this signals the start of another bountiful year of research activities and collaborations.

As a diverse Institute with multi-cultural nationalities, everyone enjoyed the celebration which included fun games and sumptuous food. There were exchanges of well-wishes and everyone brought home mandarin oranges and traditional red packets (angpow) with fortune cookies to begin another good year.