"A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day; the mourner's heart is going to break on his way." Recently, the CCPC held the first session of Culture Salon HELLO WORLD (Culture Salon HELLO WORLD - Great Beauty of China). As the Qingming Festival is just around the corner, this activity aims to lead Chinese and foreign students to appreciate the profoundness of Chinese culture and experience the customs that have been passed down for thousands of years by combining explanation and experience.
At the beginning, the secretary of CCPC, Mariam, warmly welcomed every present student and organized an ice-breaking game. The scene was full of happy laughter and cheerful voices. Many students' faces had lost their shyness at first meeting, which was replaced by lively smiles.
Afterwards, Liu Binru, head of Secretarial Department, introduced the origins of China's Qingming Festival and played a video allowing everyone to immerse themselves in the culture of Qingming. In the video, we could learn about the traditional activities during the Qingming Festival, such as, flying kites, having an outing in spring and sweeping tombs. Then Mariam proceeded to show the traditional Chinese food during the Qingming Festival and prepared qingtuans. The cadre members distributed the qingtuans to everyone in an orderly manner. Although the qingtuans were sweet but not greasy, we could see the smiles that were sweeter than honey on the faces of the students who participated in this activity.
After tasting the qingtuans, Mariam divided all students into three groups to discuss with each other traditional festivals of their own country and invited a few students to share on stage.
Afterwards, as the grand finale, the dough modelling, an important Chinese cultural heritage with an extremely long history, let the students linger on. At the site, we prepared ultra-light colorful clay for everyone to experience the fun of molding clay figurines.
Through this event, we showed the culture of Qingming from the perspective of food and handicrafts. Life and death seem to be issues that every nation would discuss. With the introduction of Qingming culture, we showed the Chinese people's reverence for life. By honouring the memory of our departed ancestors, we pass on the values they upheld. By going out in spring, we feel the greatness of life and nature. Coming of spring, all things recovery. We remember the past meanwhile face the new vigorous life.
With this activity, the CCPC aims to introduce Chinese traditional culture and demonstrate Chinese national values, to promote a better understanding of Chinese culture among foreign students and to facilitate friendly exchanges between Chinese and foreign students.
