Groningen Confucius Institute Organized Chinese New Year Celebration2019

Published on 19.02.2019

On February 8th, Groningen Confucius Institute successfully organized Chinese New Year Celebration in Platform Theater Groningen. The event brought together rich content such as speech, annual review video, performances, kahoot, reception, etc. Nearly a hundred people participated.

GCI Chinese new year celebration venue

The event began at 5:00 pm. in the afternoon. This year's celebration was hosted by Mr. Jan Klerken, Vice Director of GCI. He warmly welcomed all the participants and shared with the audience the good news that GCI was awarded as “Confucius Institute of the Year” in 2018, which was the second time that GCI won the prize.

Mr. Jan Klerken hosted the Chinese New Year Celebration

Ms. Xuefei Knoester-Cao, Director of GCI, later delivered an opening speech. Since this year is the year of pig in Chinese twelve zodiac, Xuefei Knoester-Cao introduced the knowledge of the zodiac to the guests, as well as the legend about the zodiac pig. She interacted with the audience on the zodiac and the audience speculated on the zodiac of themselves.

Ms. Xuefei Knoester-Cao delivered a speech in the celebration

Ms. Xuefei Knoester-Cao briefed the work of GCI in the past year and then the participants watched the annual review video of GCI together. The video presents the process of Groningen Confucius Institute in the fields of Chinese education, cultural communication, and Sino-Dutch business platform construction. The audience together felt the development and changes of GCI in the past year.

Video of GCI Review 2018

Later, teachers from GCI and their partners gave wonderful performances to the audience. Wei Jiang and Huili Zhang performed the songs and dances. Jiang Wei combined a Chinese style song "Roll Bead Curtain"（《卷珠帘》） with the English classic song "Scarborough Fair" to sing, Huili Zhang simultaneously performed Chinese classical dance. The performance was so fascinating that it sparked a warm applause from the audience.

Wei Jiang and Huili Zhang performed song and dance

Teacher Jingfan Xie and her partner Mr. Daniel Vuyk co-performed a classic melody, "Wait a Moment for a Thousand Years"（《千年等一回》）. The two performers made an ensemble with Chinese zither (Gu zheng) and guitar. The vivid rhythm infected the audience with its artistic appeal, and many audiences used their mobile phones to record the performance.

Jingfan Xie and Daniel Vuyk performed ensemble of Gu zheng and guitar

The performer Daniel is also fond of Chinese songs. In the interview later, he said in Chinese, "I like Chinese songs very much. I liked it when I first started listening, now I listen a lot and I like it more and more. I think a lot of Chinese songs are more emotional than some pop that people now listen to."

Daniel talked about favorite Chinese songs in the interview

Another special part of this year's New Year Celebration is the on-site knowledge competition. "Which Chinese probe landed historically on the far side of the moon on 3 January 2019?" "What are the names of these two giant pandas in the Netherlands?" "Which of the following works is Mo Yan’s?" GCI prepared abundant questions in Kahoot for participants. Under the host of the GCI teacher Wenjia Xu, almost all the audience participated in the knowledge competition through the mobile phones. Wenjia Xu also introduced relevant background knowledge to the audience before or after some questions. Finally, six participants won the first, second and third prizes. Ms. Xuefei Knoester-Cao and Mr. Jan Klerken presented prizes to the winners, and the atmosphere of the event reached a climax.

Knowledge competition of the Chinese new year celebration

In the later interview, Mr. Veenstra, the winner of the first prize of the competition, showed the prizes – air tickets between the Netherlands and China! "I am very happy! I have not been to China yet, but it has been on my wish list. China is developing so fast that I really want to travel there to see China!" Mr. Veenstra also shared his experience in learning about China through TV programs. He is also a Tai Chi fan. “I go to Tai Chi club every week, but almost every day I practice.”

Mr. Veenstra showed the ticket (the prize model)

Ms. Xuefei Knoester-Cao said in an interview, "The reason that we want to set the first prize as a ticket to China is because we want to give participants more opportunities to know about China. We hope to build bridge of communication between China and the Netherlands.” She also mentioned that she hoped that event would provide participants with a platform for mutual communication.

The celebration lasted until 9:00 p.m. that day, and the participants enjoyed the food at the reception after the knowledge competition and communicated with each other.

Mr. Ad Geerts, member of the Board of Groningen Confucius Institute, said in interview, "The celebration was very fantastic. I felt that the atmosphere is very good and successful! Actually, I attended the events from the founding of GCI, and the atmosphere has been very relaxed and friendly since then. I think this may be because GCI has found a good way to combine Chinese and Dutch culture. In the past year, GCI have held various events in Amsterdam, Hague, Groningen and other places in the Netherlands, the themes were all very interesting. I am very confident about the future development of GCI."

Mr. Ad Geerts talked about the celebration

The Chinese New Year Celebration is a traditional lunar new year event organized by Groningen Confucius Institute. By the link of Chinese new year, the celebrations bring people together to experience the festive atmosphere of Chinese new year and the charm of Chinese culture.

The Chinese new year celebration venue

TEXT/PHOTO/VIDEO by Zhihong Li
EDIT by Zhuan Hu