Groningen Confucius Institute Co-organized Chinese New Year Gala 2019

Gepubliseerd op 07.02.2019

On 4 February 2019, Groningen Confucius Institute (GCI), Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Groningen (ACSSG), and Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen jointly organized a Chinese New Year Gala in Hanze Atrium, Zernikeplein 7, Groningen. Initiated by ACSSG, the event featured a variety of Chinese cultural workshops, speeches, performances, together with the CCTV Spring Festival Gala live stream, quizzes, games and buffet.

The Chinese new year gala venue

In the first part of the gala, GCI offered three Chinese cultural workshops including Chinese Calligraphy (by Yang Wang), Opera Mask Painting (by Zhuan Hu) and Taichi (by Cui Hao, Wei Jiang). The series of workshops enabled attendees to joyfully experience and further understand Chinese culture through in-person interactions. “I enjoyed the workshops very much. The favorite one for me is calligraphy, because I think Chinese characters are very interesting!” A participant said in the interview. With the help of the teacher from GCI, she made her first Chinese calligraphy work, the character “福”(fú) which stands for good fortune in Chinese.

Chinese workshops and participants

After the three rounds of workshops, Counselor Qingyu Meng from the education section of the Chinese embassy to the Netherlands delivered the opening speech and sincerely wished all the participants a happy Chinese New Year.

Mr. Jan Klerken, Vice Director of GCI, gave the warm greetings on behalf of the whole GCI team and fondly mentioned the courses, events and projects GCI has provided.

Mr. Jan Klerken gave the warm greetings.

The gala was commemorated with an assortment of performances with unique Chinese characteristics. Besides the Chinese songs, dance and Chinese poem recital performed by talented ACSSG students, GCI teacher Huili Zhang brought a Chinese folk dance and earned great applause from the audiences.

Huili Zhang’s dance and other performances

Zhe Yan, the president of ACSSG made a review of the event, “The support and efforts by GCI have made the activity more splendid. The Chinese students in Groningen enjoyed the home-like atmosphere.”
“The gala was a great success,” said Mr. Jan Klerken, “This is the first Chinese New Year event that GCI co-organized with ACSSG, I believe by the cooperation we could strengthen the relationship and offer more great events together in the future.”

Attendees of the gala

Text by Zhihong Li, Wei Jiang
Photo by Zhihong Li
Edit by Zhuan Hu