According to the Chinese lunar calendar New Year of the Tiger 2022 has come on February 1, and festive events in the PRC are held until February 15. At the Belarusian State Economic University we also celebrated this significant for Chinese culture holiday. In the period from 02/07/2022 to 02/11/2022, teachers of the Department of English and Oriental Languages held a number of events on the basis of the Confucius Classroom of BSU RISC at BSEU together with the Chinese Cultural Center Of Minsk. With the help of calligraphy, video materials, presentations and creative competitions, students were able to feel the atmosphere and the significance of the Spring Festival.
The opening (February 7) of our festive week was the lesson “The Origins of Calligraphic Writing”, which was conducted by teacher Karavko D.A.
The next day (February 8), students had the opportunity to get acquainted with the traditional way of celebrating Chinese New Year. It was the thematic lesson “Spring Festival and the customs of its celebration” (conducted by teacher Vasilevich A.S.). At the class, students learned the history of the festival, origin of its name, got acquainted with the peculiarities of congratulations in Chinese and the main traditions regarding decorating the house, cooking for the festive diner, and ways of spending time during the holidays. Students not only acquired cultural knowledge, but also enriched their vocabulary with the thematic words in Chinese.
On Thursday (February 10) there was probably the most spectacular event of the week – “Shan Shui (Traditional Chinese Landscape Compositions) and the Art of Calligraphy” (conducted by teacher Zhang H.). The students were able to see traditional New Year decorations and try some Chinese sweets, but the main events of the day were a lecture and a workshop held by Shan Shui artist Liu Heijun (post-graduate student of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts); a student of our university Wang Kaidi (FIBC, 19DYAK-5) also held a master class in calligraphy. In the photos you can see how the class went, the works of Liu Heijun and our students (photographer: 4th year student of BSTU Gao Tanhe).
On Friday (February 11), which was the final day of our festive week, two events took place: “Decorative element in the culture of China” (Teacher Karavko D.A.) and “Traditional Chinese festive dishes” (Teacher Ponomareva D.V.). At the first lesson, students got acquainted with the main elements of home decor for the New Year, which include paired strips of red paper with New Year’s wishes, lanterns and cut-out paper decorations, among which the images of the symbol of the year and the hieroglyph “福” (happiness) are the most popular. Each of these symbols has its own history, which were discussed in detail during the class. At the final event there was a detailed and colourful presentation about New Year’s dishes and festive dinner traditions.
Such events are not only popular among the students, but also encourage greater interest in learning the language. This time wasn’t an exception, so holding events dedicated to the celebration of the Chinese New Year will definitely become a tradition at our university.
