Written by Zhang Xiaoyu

On February 10, 2016, the second day of the first lunar month of Monkey Year, red lanterns, Chinese knots, Spring couplets, Beijing opera masks, traditional Chinese umbrellas and Chinese zodiacs were all on display at Bliss Carman Middle School’s cultural event to usher in the year of Monkey. 

This Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at Bliss Carman is a big success with the CINB foreign director Mrs. Tengjing as special guests. Both the school and the local education bureau paid great attention to it. Also, it’s a periodic presentation of the Chinese language and culture course held by CINB teacher Zhang Xiaoyu since last September.

At the start of the event, teachers and students watched the Photostory，which reviewed bits and pieces of their Chinese learning experience from the past six months. The event started with two MCs in "sheep" and "monkey" costumes telling the story of the "Chinese Zodiacs" and the origin of the Chinese lunar year. The event involved all aspects of Chinese culture: the grade 7 students presented a refreshing version of “Jasmine Flower” sung in a humorous way; students from Chinese enrichment class made a wonderful presentation of their research on Chinese culture; the dancing group danced really well to “Sing Beijing Opera Masks”; and the bamboo dance, performed by the grade 8 students, caused a small discussion: is it a dance or sport?

Finally, students from the calligraphy group introduced the four treasures of study, and then they demonstrated their Chinese calligraphic work ("chun", “jie”, “kuai”,”le”, “sui”, “sui”, “ping”, “an”, "fu"). Next, festive music was sounded and all the performers collectively appeared on the stage, wishing each other “Guo Nian Hao !(Happy New Year)” in Chinese. The audience applauded loudly and the school principal Mr. Hamilton began to ask questions and handed out gift money. This brought the whole event to its climax! At the end of this event, Mrs. Jackie Firlotte from Newcomer student support, Anglophone School District-West, distributed fortune cookies to each student and teacher and wished everyone peace and good luck in the year to come.

This cultural event was coordinated by CINB teacher Zhang Xiaoyu along with Mrs. Jackie Firlotte, BCMS music teacher Mrs. Clarke, BCMS art teacher Mrs. Mills and BCMS teacher Mrs. Merasty. It gives BCMS teachers and students a better understanding of CINB and a good chance of experiencing the profound Chinese culture.

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