In school year 2015-2016, Zwijsen College began to provide Chinese Language and Culture as an exam subject to VWO students. Currently there are 4 groups learning Chinese; a total of 24 students. This year for the first time, we decided to celebrate Chinese New Year(春节)。
On February 5th, the school was decorated with typical Chinese New Year decorations. 福 ‘happiness’ could be seen everywhere. Lanterns and a Chinese flag adorned the aula while a Chinese knot was hanging in the center. Of course this being the Year of Pig, cute pigs were also present.
Twentysix students of Chinese Language and Culture participated in Chinese calligraphy and paper cutting workshops, provided by the teachers of the Confucius Institute. During the lunchbreak, other students could join the celebrations by eating Chinese dumplings (a typical festival food), drinking Chinese tea, having their names written in Chinese and of course trying out the calligraphy and paper-cutting too.
Under the watchful eye of the lovely smiling pig on the big projection screen, typical Chinese new year songs were in the air. Curious faces were everywhere and the first Chinese New Year celebration at Zwijsen College was a success. I’m especially very proud of the 26 students of Chinese Language & Culture who performed all the activities. I received many compliments from other teacher about how the students explained the related Chinese language and culture well and clearly.
Of course there is always room for improvement. For the dumplings, we had 5 students cooking for the others. However, there still was long queue waiting. We wanted to make sure all the meat was well cooked and demand turned out to be much larger than what we could provide. Not offering any more dumplings was not an option, since the students found them too delicious. Next year, we will arrange more cooks and start preparing earlier.
We wish everybody a happy and prosperous year!
