Chinese Culture Festival
The Chinese Culture Festival is a signature brand event of "Cultural Education" at Xiamen University, hosted by the College of Chinese International Education / Overseas Education College. Since its inception in 2013, it has been held for 13 consecutive years, evolving into a core carrier for the university to showcase its cultural soft power to the outside world and deepen international exchanges. At this grand event, the treasures of traditional Chinese culture, the radiance of art and the vitality of modern innovation shine together, presenting the excellent traditional Chinese culture in a three-dimensional and comprehensive way, and writing a new chapter of mutual appreciation of civilizations in the dialogue between diverse cultures.
Held once a year, the Chinese Culture Festival is generally composed of two major parts: the Cultural Gala and the Cultural Interactive Experience, with the purpose of promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. It attracts nearly a thousand Chinese and foreign teachers and students to participate enthusiastically every year.
Cultural Interactive Experience
This part is a popular highlight of the Chinese Culture Festival, where the college sets up a variety of intangible cultural heritage experience booths, welcoming teachers, students and visitors from outside the university to experience the charm of traditional Chinese culture in a hands-on way. At the 13th Chinese Culture Festival, as many as eleven intangible cultural heritage experience projects were launched, including pith carving and painting, traditional dough modeling, glove puppet, Chinese tea art, porcelain cutting, paper cutting, and calligraphy, all of which were extremely popular and bustling with activity.
At the glove puppet booth, Chinese and foreign teachers and students gathered around the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage, focusing on learning the fingertip manipulation skills and personally performing interesting "puppet skits". In the Chinese tea art area, the fragrance of tea lingered in the air; teachers and students sat around the tea table, watching the tea soup slowly poured into the tasting cups, and sipping it slowly, they experienced the profound heritage of oriental elegance and the thousand-year-old tea ceremony in an immersive way. The porcelain cutting area was crowded with people; everyone carefully selected bright-colored porcelain pieces, cut and pasted them under the guidance of the inheritors, and delicate porcelain flowers took shape one after another. The porcelain cutting works completed by students from various countries will be displayed at the college celebration the next year after renovation. The paper cutting section was also a sea of people; everyone held scissors to outline patterns, and jointly pieced together a powerful paper cutting dragon with small paper cutting works. National-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor Chen Yao was on-site to make silhouette portraits for everyone, attracting enthusiastic participation. The calligraphy booth was even more crowded with a lively atmosphere; students either wielded brushes and splashed ink under the guidance of teachers to experience the elegant artistic conception of brush and ink painting, or lined up in a long queue in front of the desks of three calligraphy teachers, hoping to get a piece of calligraphy with a good moral meaning. Even as the sky darkened and many booths were gradually tidied up, many students still lingered on, reluctant to leave. In addition, interactive projects such as arrow throwing and lantern riddles also had long queues; the bated breath when throwing arrows, the cheers after hitting the target, the deep thinking when guessing lantern riddles, and the lively discussions after suddenly realizing the answer, all let everyone deeply experience the unique charm and vivid fun of traditional culture in hands-on practice and interesting games.
The rich and diverse cultural experience activities allow all participants to gain a lot. Students from all over the world have said that the experience not only makes them feel the profound heritage of traditional Chinese culture, but also gains valuable practical experience through interactive teaching, leaving an unforgettable cultural journey.
Cultural Gala
The Cultural Gala is the grand opening of the Chinese Culture Festival, a brilliant stage for the integration of civilizations from all over the world. The college invites renowned artists in the field of traditional culture to give cultural performances, and also organizes students to choreograph and perform wonderful shows, presenting a audio-visual feast of Chinese and Western integration for Chinese and foreign teachers and students.
A major highlight of the Cultural Gala is the in-depth promotion of local intangible cultural heritage. At the 13th Chinese Culture Festival, the national intangible cultural heritage - Gezai Opera, a local opera in southern Fujian, was the core thread of the whole performance, connecting the ancient and the modern. Teacher Su Yanrong, a winner of the Plum Blossom Award, hosted and explained on-site, leading the audience to immerse themselves in the charming world of this traditional art. The interactive links are full of fun: foreign students with exquisite opera makeup sneaked into the audience, and the big screen displayed their pre-makeup photos simultaneously, inviting the whole audience to find the "mystery guests", instantly igniting the on-site interactive enthusiasm; international students from five countries including Poland sang the classic Gezai Opera track Riding a White Horse in Minnan dialect under the leadership of the teacher, and their sincere emotions and slightly jerky but extremely earnest singing won warm applause from the whole audience; first-class Gaojia Opera actor Teacher Chen Bingcong also took the stage with his Ghanaian international student apprentice, performing the classic clown moves of Gaojia Opera on-site, and the humorous and vivid interaction made the audience burst into cheers.
The Cultural Gala is not only a display of traditional Chinese art, but also a solid bridge for spiritual connection between China and foreign countries. Chinese and foreign students stand on the same stage, using performances as a language to break down cultural barriers, allowing civilizations to exchange and learn from each other in the collision of art, and letting the beauty of diverse cultures bloom together on the stage of Xiamen University.
