The Open University’s Online Confucius Institute delivers first of many Chinese New Year Workshops at local schools

Thirty pupils from Brooklands Primary School in Milton Keynes enjoyed a vibrant introduction to Chinese New Year traditions during a special workshop delivered by the Online Confucius Institute. The session was led by Andy Xu, Chinese Director of the Online Confucius Institute, who guided the children through fun activities exploring the cultural significance of the festival. 

The school children particularly enjoyed creating their own keepsake keyring with a special Chinese knot attached to a ping pong ball. They decorated the ping pong balls creatively with “Year of the Horse” drawings and Chinese characters. One pupil said "This is the part I enjoyed the most, drawing the horse. I learned that it's considered lucky!" whilst another said 'it was exciting because we learned to use chop sticks and that the main dish would be dumplings!'. The children were an asset to their school, enthusiastically joining in and finished the session with a gift exchange where they presented each other with their creations and learned how to say "Happy New Year of the Horse“ in Chinese – 马年好  （mǎ nián hǎo）.   

Andy says: ‘In just one hour, these lovely kids really blew me away! They were so enthusiastic, curious, focused,  imaginative and hands-on. Even though it was their very first time being exposed to Chinese culture, they 
managed to paint Chinese characters on ping-pong balls really well and read aloud Chinese New Year greetings with perfect pronunciation and intonation. They were super fantastic!’.  Dr Kan Qian, OU’s Director of the Online Confucius Institute also attended to help facilitate the workshop and hoped that the session would 'inspire the children to learn some Chinese or other foreign languages in future’. 

The team hopes this will be the beginning of an ongoing partnership and looks forward to returning in the future to deliver more cultural learning experiences.

Please see below for a short video from the day.