21 February 2019
Chinese New Year is commonly known as the most important festival in Chinese culture. This year, the Chinese New Year started on 5 February and ended on 19 February. During this period, Chinese language students from Years 7 to 12 participated in various festival related activities during lessons.
In Year 7, students learnt how Chinese people celebrate Chinese New Year, the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals and watched two video clips about them. One was a Chinese Zodiac cartoon, which is made by using Chinese characters. The other was about the 12 Chinese Zodiac Martial Arts. Students enjoyed doing the martial arts while saying the names of each movement, which contained idioms about the Chinese zodiac in order. In addition, students did paper cutting of a golden pig to celebrate the Year of the Pig.
In Year 8, the two Chinese classes learnt how to make dumplings, which is an essential food experience during New Year’s Eve to hope for prosperity in the coming year. Different from previous years, this year, with the assistance from Chartwells, the chef prepared the dumpling filling and dumpling skins and the students folded the dumplings themselves, so that students could enjoy the dumplings that they made by themselves. The students demonstrated their creativity by making dumplings in different shapes. Students also learnt how to use chopsticks and challenged themselves to pick up jellybeans with chopsticks. Miss Ziniak’s class looked at the Chinese zodiac and how the signs compare and contrast to the Western zodiac, and also how zodiac attributes can be used to see relationship compatibility.
The Year 9 students learnt Chinese New Year greeting phrases and also learnt how to describe celebrations during the Spring Festival in Chinese.
The Year 10 to 12 students watched videos about Chunyun (China’s epic new year travel rush) and the CCTV New Year’s Gala. They also participated in class discussions on comparisons between Chinese New Year’s celebrations and Christmas traditions, especially the value of family reunions. The Year 12 students also assembled lanterns and decorated the classroom.
Special thanks must go to Catering Manager Ms Tamsin Michalitsianos and the Head Chef Mr Joel O’Neill.
Chinese Department
