Rehearsals for the Yew Chung International School of Beijing’sChinese New Year celebrations are underway and students are hard at work perfecting their performances for Wednesday, January 22^nd in what will be a series of events and activities organized by Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary Schools divisions. This is in line with the school’s espousal of both Eastern and Western cultures

According to Secondary Chinese Coordinator, Amy Zhang celebrations such as these are crucial as they allow students to “experience and understand the holiday better through trying traditional activities. These activities last for a period of time and can help students reflect on Chinese culture and history.”

China Studies Programme

The Chinese New Year celebrations coincide with the Y2-9 unit topic of “Tradition and Culture” where students are focusing on traditional Chinese poems. China Studies topics are chosen either as an extension of what students have learnt in Chinese class or are related to the Learning Community topic.”  according to Miss Zhang. This is to further reinforce their Chinese cultural knowledge and understanding.

Chinese New Year Celebrations

The annual Spring Festival celebrations on our campus, as usual, will comprise of the Secondary Temple Fair which will take place with booths containing folk artists who will be selling paper cut out products, caramelized sugar paintings, name art, face masks and many others to students from all our school’s divisions.

The year of the rat is characterized by innovation and intelligence which our activities include, coincidentally. There are many DIY activities planned where students will explore their innovative sides, and Lantern Riddle activities, an age-old tradition, touching on the intelligent side of this particular animal of the zodiac.

Happy Chinese and Beautiful China Performances

The performances will include a wide range of pieces from students and according to Primary School Chinese Vice-Principal, April Peng “The students will present based on a variety of themes such as the Chinese minority groups, the traditional Festivals or customs.”  to name a few. ECE students will take part in Happy Chinese performance and Primary school students in Beautiful China Performances.

According to Miss Zhang, the school community will work collaboratively to make this event a success because the “PA department is in charge of the students’ performance at the Temple Fair, and all teachers and students are encouraged to wear traditional Chinese clothes on that day.”

In addition to all the planned festivities, she added that“Secondary School will hold Chinese New Year Tutor Group Decoration Competition. Students will receive materials like red paper, blank lantern, etc. and they will use those materials to decorate their tutor room”  with the most attractive and creative tutor room winning the competition.

At YCIS Beijing practicing multicultural learning is continuous, with our bilingual learning environment, experiencing China Trip and the daily studying of Chinese in our Learning Communities. An as our MPPs state “We believe in equipping our graduates with a deep respect for and understanding of world cultures.” 

We enforce an understanding of Chinese culture and important events in many ways, but most importantly, “Our teachers are the ambassadors of the Chinese culture and our school’s unique bilingual programme contributes to that”  concluded Miss Peng.