Entering 2021, anticipating the arrival of Spring Festival and continuing to work in this virtual world, the Confucius Institute at the University of Sheffield decided that alongside the annual Spring Festival Gala, to hold a series of workshops to celebrate Spring Festival, or Chinese/Lunar New Year, as it is also known.
The series of workshops focused on a variety of topics, from an introduction to Mandarin Chinese, traditional Calligraphy and even a lesson in Taiji. All workshops took place in the evening from 18:00 to 19:00pm and were each hosted by one of the Confucius Institutes very own teachers.
The workshops began on Thursday 11 February with the Mandarin Chinese Language Taster workshop.
The first workshop, a Mandarin Chinese Language Taster was split into three main parts; an introduction to the Chinese phonetic system, an introduction to the Chinese writing system and New Year greetings and was hosted by our teacher, Huang Huihui.
In the introduction to the Chinese phonetic system, Huihui briefly introduced the initials, vowels and tones in the modern Chinese phonetic system, and led everyone in pronouncing parts of the Chinese phonetic alphabet.
Huihui also challenged participants to read aloud the article "The History of Shi Shi's Lion Eater" created by Zhao Yuanren, the father of modern Chinese linguistics.
In the introduction to the Chinese writing system, Huihui first started by encouraging the audience to guess the Chinese characters hidden in a variety of written symbols.
Huihui then expanded on this, by introducing Xu Shen's 说文解字 "Shuo Wen Jie Zi", the four methods of making characters. These are 象形 (pictogram), 指事 (ideogram), 会意 (combined ideogram) and 形声 (ideogram plus phonetic).
Huihui then encouraged participants to apply these methods and “create” the Chinese character of a picture, based on the meaning, the shape and the structure of that picture.
This in turn helped the audience gain a deeper understanding of the formation of Chinese characters from a variety of perspectives.
In the third and final part of the Chinese Language Taster, Huihui introduced participants to the Chinese New Year of the Ox as well as some useful New Year greetings.
Participants listened with interest and learnt to sing the Chinese song "Happy New Year". These newly learnt skills and the festive atmosphere bought the first workshop to a successful close.
To finish, both Huihui, participants and members of the Confucius Institute who joined, sent sincere New Year greetings to each other.
Feedback from participants:
Thank you so much, it was lovely!
Participant
Chinese New Year Language Taster workshop
Thank you this was really interesting!
Participant
Chinese New Year Language Taster workshop
Thank you for the lesson - I really enjoyed it!
Participant
Chinese New Year Language Taster workshop