The Dragon Boat Festival is one of the four top traditional Chinese festivals, along with Spring Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. Confucius Schools overseas held a variety of characteristic activities to celebrate the festival and carry on the traditions. The Confucius School in New Zealand organized an online event “Savor the Taste of Zongzi and Gain the Wisdom of Sages”.Young New Zealand students and their parents participated in the event and connected with their Chinese counterparts through an online platform.
The event consisted of four sessions. The first session was poetry reading. The students were guided by the Chinese language teachers to appreciate poetry on the Dragon Boat Festival and comprehend “the scenery in your eyes is reflected in your mood and your mood is reflected in the scenery in your eyes”. The second session was a lecture conducted by Huilin, a teacher from the Confucius School in New Zealand, on the origin of Chinese characters and the appreciation of Chinese calligraphy. The students were guided to sense the beauty of Chinese characters and the wisdom of Chinese sages. In the third session, Ms. Wen Yuting conducted an online Go lesson, imparting the knowledge of Go to the students and taking them on a journey to understand the wisdom in the game. The fourth session was a sand painting lesson by Ms. Yan, Vice President of the Shandong Sand Painting Association. She taught the young students to depict the lovely world of sand painting using their fingers. At the end of the event, the students and parents worked together to make paper-folding gifts for the festival according to the DIY instructions.
Interaction and interconnectivity were the new highlights of the event in which Chinese and New Zealand students learned and played together. They had the chance to have friendly communication and deepen their friendship and mutual understanding while inheriting traditional culture and art. The event was well received by the students and parents.
Confucius School of Canada’s TAC also held similar festive activities featuring online interactions and exchange on the Dragon Boat Festival. This marked the first cultural exchange since Changzhou Vocational College of Technology and TAC became sister schools. The special festive event started with the hanfu show and the guzheng performance by the teachers and students of Changzhou Vocational College of Technology. The two schools had their characteristic music or recitation societies recite poetry about the Dragon Boat Festival to folk music.
The Chinese Language Workshop of Changzhou Vocational College of Technology used poetry, props and videos to explain Dragon Boat Festival traditions including wearing hanfu, commemorating the death of Dafu Qu Yuan and holding the dragon boat race.
In the subsequent games, the workshop explained relevant customs and their connotations. Teachers and students on the two sides smeared realgar wine on students’ forehead and tied five-color string. Smearing realgar wine on kids’ forehead is a traditional custom of the festival that is believed to ward off poisonous insects. The typical practice is to paint the Chinese character “王” on kids’ forehead with realgar wine. For one thing, realgar wine could drive poisonous creatures away; for another, the kid would look like a tiger, which could keep away evil things. Made with threads of five colors, five-color string was known as five-color long-life thread in ancient times. It is an ancient custom dating back to the Song Dynasty. Tying five-color string on the Dragon Boat Festival is a symbol of resistance against all poisons.
The workshop also introduced to the students the pitch-pot game and the shooting of the five poisons as well as the connotations of the customs. The pitch-pot game is a throwing game played by scholar-officials at banquets in ancient times. Also a ritual, it was quite popular during the Warring States period and further promoted in the Tang Dynasty. Shooting the five poisons is a custom of shooting the paintings of scorpions, snakes, lizards, toads and centipedes, which symbolizes people's wish to ward off the evil and diseases. After the introduction, students on the two sides were invited to play the throwing and shooting games. The interactive games allowed them to have an experience of the rich and interesting traditional Chinese cultural activities.
At the end of the event, the workshop introduced the varieties and cultural connotations of zongzi and qingtuan (green glutinous rice ball with stuffing). Cooking teachers demonstrated the simple method of making zongzi and qingtuan. The Chinese and Canadian students used prepared materials to make zongzi and qingtuan following the teacher.
Traditional customs bear the cultural content of perse social activities of Chinese ancestors and carry broad and profound historical and cultural connotations. These fun activities allowed the students to gain a firsthand experience of traditional culture, understand the charm of it, acquire knowledge and broaden their view. (source from chinakongzi.org)
