This week at HIKSVS, pupils have celebrated the Chinese New Year – the year of the dog. Classrooms, corridors and drama studios are awash with the red and gold that signifies a New Year in the lunar calendar. The year of the dog will be heralded by large family meals and fireworks (however they are banned due to strict pollution laws in Tianjin!). Last Friday, all of the children took part in a festival of fun, colour and eating. The children were involved in Chinese painting, Chinese lantern making, an authentic Chinese instrument band and traditional Chinese singing.
The best fun was had when children were paired together and red paper, painted with the symbol of Fu, was thrown in the air. One of the pair had to find the paper and stick it to their partner's clothing. Fu is the Chinese symbol for Happy New Year and Happy Blessings for the New Year. The more you have the luckier and happier you will be in the next year. Even the teachers got involved, sending good wishes for the New Year in Mandarin. The logistics team had worked very hard to transform the Drama Studio into a beautifully decorated room full of red Fu symbols on the walls and windows.
The afternoon closed with pupils and all the staff of HIKSVS making traditional Chinese dumplings. We saw a number of different shapes and sizes of dumplings but, if made properly, the finished dumpling resembles a mini Cornish Pasty, but there the similarity finishes! Families will fill the dumpling with their favourite filling; it could be meat, vegetables or fish. Once made, the dumplings are boiled for ten minutes and eaten with chopsticks from a bowl filled with vinegar. Things went well for the Principal, Mr Green until the final hurdle of picking up a very squashy ball of meat with chop sticks, he finally adopted the stabbing technique!
The school now has a two-week holiday in celebration of the New Year and will welcome children back on February 26th for the second half of the Spring Term, in the meantime - Guo Nian Hao– Happy New Year!