Chinese Events
Chinese Program Events Fall 2020
The Chinese program hosted six events this fall semester to enhance students in-person learning experience. The event series featured a wide range of topics that supplemented our curriculum and gave students opportunities to connect with different professors and peers in the program. Students spoke highly of the events and very enthusiastically shared their experience with us below.
I attended the event that covered the legend surrounding the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. There, we learned about the legend of Houyi, who shot down nine of the ten suns and his beloved, Chang’e, who was coerced to drink an elixir of immortality, spiriting her away to the moon where she would forever spend her days apart from her loved one. To celebrate this holiday, people consume mooncakes and light lanterns. There are also a great deal of songs and poems that celebrate the legend of Chang’e, and we read one at the event, titled 水调歌头 (Prelude to Water Melody). In addition, we sang some of our favorite Chinese songs, like one that I recommended for the event – 老鼠爱大米（lao shu ai da mi). It was a really enjoyable event that exposed me to one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and allowed me to experience Chinese poetry and music. ”
By Justin Kan in LC111
I enjoyed getting introduced to a lot of shows I’ve never heard of! The topic of shadow puppetry interested me because it is such a unique way of creating animations. Before cameras and video editing software, it seems like this was the only way of bringing motionless objects into motion. Just as Huang (Navarre) Laoshi said in the presentation, it imitated a form of magic. It makes sense that Chinese animation dates its roots way back to 1000 BC, since the Chinese did invent paper! I wonder if people still perform live paper puppet shows on the streets such as in the video in the presentation. I related the art of paper animations to the paper dragons we see on the streets during Chinese New Year celebrations. I find it amazing how people think of these ideas. I wonder what the future of Chinese anime entails. Who knows, maybe some technological aspect could be brought in to make the paper move on its own. Whatever the future entails for Chinese anime, I am eager to find out!
By Edmund Ruan in LC112
I attended the event The Chinese dream. We learnt about how Xi Jinping incited economic reform in China. Because of the reform, around 500 million people were able to get out of poverty. There’s also land reform, which guarantees private property rights. The silk road economic belt and 21st Maritime Silk is set to be completed in 2049. It started in 2013 as an investment in 70 counties to boost economic growth. From the presentation and videos, it seems Xi Jinping completely turned China’s economy around. There’s also this idea that everyone has a dream(每个人都有一个梦), and everyone will be able to achieve their Chinese dream. I enjoyed learning about a variety of people’s Chinese dreams!
By Macy McCalla in LC211
This semester, I attended the poetry reading event. The poem I decided to read was 离思 by 元稹. It reads as follows: 曾经沧海难为水，除却巫山不是云，取次花从懒回顾，半缘修道半缘君. The English translation is, “No water’s enough when you have crossed the sea；No cloud is beautiful but that which crowns the peak. I pass by flowers that fail to attract poor me; Half for your sake and half for Taoism I seek.” This poem seems to describe the Wu mountain, but in actuality the poet is longing for his wife. I chose this poem because I appreciated the poet’s intersection between nature and love, similar to his depiction of Taoism. Poetry in China is a way to express the thinking and feeling of a moment, which needs to adhere to the social and cultural environment that surrounds it. What makes Chinese poetry so moving is the contrast between fluctuation and clarity of human nature, and the continuity and eternal renewal of life of the natural world. This poem perfectly reflects this. I have always admired Chinese poetry, and in particular its relationship with traditional Chinese paintings (Poem-Paintings). In poem-paintings, the poem and painting are not two independent entities, but in fact complement each other. Painting was regarded as “silent poetry” and poetry as “painting with sound”. These are aspects of Chinese history that the culture event highlighted through everyone’s presentations. I highly recommend people attend this poetry slam, it was very impactful to hear everyone’s poems and their own interpretation of the meaning.
By Julia Meyersiek in LC212
