Chinese New Year & State Capitol Tour

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the HMA international students group traveled to Richmond for an fun and eventful outing. Cadets spent the morning at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and the Virginia Fine Arts Museum. Cadets were particularly enthusiastic about seeing the colonial weapons display and learning about dueling through the Alexander Hamilton exhibit. After lunch, cadets toured the Virginia capitol building, designed by Thomas Jefferson, where they learned more about Virginia’s rich history. For dinner, cadets were taken to an authentic Chinese restaurant for a taste of home. Dongjun Ma demonstrated his bravery by eating the eyeball out of a steamed fish head. As a special surprise, Colonel Brown sent along “hongbao,” literally meaning “red envelopes,” a traditional Chinese New Year gift, for the international cadets. The evening ended with a quick shopping spree at an Asian market where cadets stocked up on hard-to-find snacks from home.