Archive for the ‘Chinese Culture’ Category

• Chinese Culture – China to celebrate Teachers’ Day with more attention to teachers’ welfare – Study Chinese

  Date: 2010.09.05 | Category: Chinese Culture, Study Chinese | Response: 0

  The Chinese government is paying more attention to the welfare of millions of teachers prior to the country’s 26th Teachers’ Day that falls on Sept. 10.

  To celebrate the holiday, various activities, including an evening gala, singing contests and congratulatory speeches will be organized, an official with the Ministry of Education said at a press conference Thursday.

  Guan Peijun, the chief of the initial teacher training department of the ministry, said that local education departments should help teachers resolve practical problems and listen to their complaints and demands.

  To encourage and reward teachers who serve in grassroots rural areas, the ministry has collected more than 36,000 educational books as presents for them.

  The ministry will also award organizations and individuals who had given outstanding performances in quake-relief within the educational system following the Yushu earthquake this year.

  Further, officials from the Education Ministry will visit those teachers who had been injured in the Wenchuan and Yushu quakes and invite them to participate in Beijing’s celebration gala and Shanghai Expo.

  The evening gala, entitled “Seeding the Future”, whose chief director is the president of Art School of the People’s Liberation Army, will be staged in Beijing on Sept. 9. More than 700 teachers and students from 9 provinces, cities and municipalities will take part in the gala.

• Study Chinese – Perfect answer to overcrowded Shaolin Temple – Chinese Culture

  Date: 2010.08.29 | Category: Chinese Culture, Study Chinese | Response: 0

  

  Slovenian Elizabeth Skuber Ostermaw says mass tourist visits are threatening Wudang.

  In the kungfu world there is a saying: “In the North, Shaolin holds sway; in the South, Wudang rules”.

  In recent years, however, Shaolin Temple and its kungfu have become better known thanks to superior marketing by its abbot Shi Yongxin.

  “Shaolin kungfu is extremely popular in Australia and New Zealand,” Jackie Sheargold, a massage therapist from New Zealand, says, mainly because it has had plenty of movie exposure and troupes of Shaolin warriors have performed all over the world.

  Meanwhile the soft, poetic, internal kungfu style of Wudang has been relatively overlooked.

  Slovenian Elizabeth Skuber Ostermaw says mass tourist visits are threatening Wudang.

  “Shaolin has become the place to go for Chinese kungfu enthusiasts from around the world,” says Norwegian Bjarte Simon Hiley, who intends to restore the balance a little by establishing a Wudang kungfu society in Norway.

  He says he was disappointed to find on a recent trip to Shaolin Temple that the cradle for Zen Buddhism was excessively commercial and “only superficial skills were taught”.

  The city of Dengfeng, where Shaolin Temple is located, has become the largest training base for Chinese kungfu, with about 80 training schools and about 50,000 domestic and international students per year.

  In contrast, Mount Wudang has less than 20 training schools, according to senior Wudang kungfu tutor Guan Yongxing.

  Li Wei, a senior manager with the Wudang Taoist Kungfu Academy says they receive less than 1,000 students a year, although the academy is one of the largest and most influential training centers on Mount Wudang.

  “Personally, I like it quiet,” Sheargold says.

  The local government and the Wudang Taoist Association say they are not planning to organize a Shaolin-style marketing campaign, though there have been changes, such as transforming the traditional academy building into a modern hotel.

  In 1997, the Wudang Special Economic Zone was set up, combing the hillside town with the scenic Mount Wudang.

  Last year, an expressway linking Mount Wudang and Xi’an was built so that it takes just two-and-a-half hours for visitors to get there after a visit to the Terracotta Warriors. Additionally, an airport is under construction and will be operating in two years, local officials say.

  Meanwhile, more business facilities and hotels are being built around the mountains, a cable car going to the Golden Palace on the summit of Mount Wudang is being refurbished; new movies featuring Wudang warriors are being produced; and Wudang kungfu festivals such as the upcoming one in October have been held since 2008.

  Also, Wudang kungfu, tai chi and Taoist shows are being staged daily from July to September at the Group Level Squares of the Shanghai Expo site, in the hope of attracting more visitors to Mount Wudang.

  Slovenian Chinese studies expert Elizabeta Skuber Osterman, however, believes “cheap mass tourist visits to Wudang are threatening the century-old cultural heritage site”.

  She says visitors speaking loudly to each other and on their mobile phones, drinking alcohol, smoking and littering at the Taoist holy site should be discouraged.

  “The culture of which you are so proud will soon decline, if these cheap mass tours to Wudang are to continue,” Osterman says.

  “It is important to develop tourist trips to Wudang where people come to be serious and humble …” she adds.

• Study Chinese – Mermaid’s birthday abroad – Chinese Culture

  Date: 2010.08.22 | Category: Chinese Culture, Study Chinese | Response: 0

  Denmark’s iconic “Little Mermaid” statue is seen in her new “home” at the Denmark Pavilion in the World Expo Park in Shanghai, east China, on April 25, 2010.  (Xinhua/Ren Long)

  BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) — The Little Mermaid’s 97th birthday, as well as the statue’s first birthday abroad, was marked on Saturday with the start of a three-day celebration.

  Sculptor Edvard Eriksen’s statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Little Mermaid was first unveiled on Aug 23, 1913, when it was placed beside Copenhagen harbor in Langelinie.

  A Danish national symbol, The Little Mermaid was on display there until it was moved to the Denmark Pavilion in May for Shanghai Expo 2010, where it will remain for the duration of the event.

  To celebrate the festive occasion, a series of commemorative activities were held over the weekend.

  “We will give The Little Mermaid a big party on her first birthday away from home. This is a great opportunity to celebrate The Little Mermaid’s presence in China and give our visitors the chance to have fun experiencing some of the best of Danish culture,” Christopher Bo Bramsen, Commissioner General of the Denmark Pavilion, said as the celebrations began on Saturday.

  The Tivoli Boys Guard, a group of boys aged 9 to 16, marched through the pavilion dressed in red coats, white trousers and bear skins hats while playing flutes and drums for visitors.

  Theatre Madam Bach, led by Pernille Bach and Christian Schroder, presented a play for children called The Four Seasons, which took the audience through the four Danish seasons.

  As paper cutting was a favorite hobby of the children’s author who created The Little Mermaid, there was also a paper-cutting workshop jointly taught by Lu Xue, from China, and Soren Thaae, from Denmark.

  Among the other activities, there was a reading of fairytales written by the author and a mermaid stone where visitors could pose for photos in which they look like the fabled sea creature.

  The festivities will culminate with a great splash on The Little Mermaid’s actual birthday on Monday, when a round of happy birthday is sung to the statue, followed by a water show.

  “It is a Danish tradition to celebrate The Little Mermaid’s birthday with girls of all ages jumping into the water by her spot in Copenhagen harbor,” said Bramsen.

  Three female Danish synchronized swimmers, headed by Mette Markussen, and male dancer/choreographer Tore Munch will present a performance about mermaids, love and fairytales in the harbor pool at the centre of the pavilion.

  The show deals with the classic theme of a love divided by two different worlds – the kind of love that the Little Mermaid suffers in the fairytale.

  A specially designed Mermaid Stamp will also be launched on Monday only for visitors to have placed in their Expo passports.

  Zhang Keying, a 4-year-old Chinese girl who shares the same birthday as The Little Mermaid, will present the statue with a flower and be the first guest to receive the Mermaid Stamp on her special day.