10 March 2022
Chinese New Year is commonly known as the most important festival in Chinese culture. This year, Chinese New Year started on 1 February and ended on 15 February. During this period, Chinese language students in the Senior School participated in various festival related activities during lessons.
In Year 7, students discussed Chinese New Year customs and did collaborative coloring to make a nice puzzle of the tiger, which is this year’s Chinese zodiac animal.
In Year 8, the Chinese Language and Literature class watched this year’s New Year short movie called “有虎气” and wrote movie reviews. This movie aims to challenge the superstitious ways that the traditional Chinese culture promotes when it is in one’s natal year (本命年). Students had class discussions, not only laughed about some extreme behaviours that characters did in the movie due to the superstitious thoughts, but also deepened their understanding of the damages it can cause, and found what is the right attitude that people should have when they are in their natal years.
The Years 8 and 9 classes watched videos of Chinese New Year celebrations in recent years, including this year’s Gala and how athletes celebrated Chinese New Year inside the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Village. Students discussed how customs and traditions have changed along with the development of technology and under the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Year 10, students not only learned the Chinese New Year song 《拜新年》, but also watched a short video clip introducing the character “福”. By decoding “福”, students further understood the charm of Chinese characters, as it is said in the video, “小小汉字大学问”, little Chinese character contains big knowledge, which is the culture, the philosophy and the wisdom.
Senior School Chinese Department