CIUC Newsletter December 2015 South Canterbury Multi-Cultural Festival HSK/YCT examinations. Altogether, 377 prizes were awarded. Lincoln High School was awarded the ‘2015 Confucius Classroom of the Year’ for it’s outstanding work in promoting Chinese teaching in Selwyn District. Photo: MLAs Ms DU Juan and Ms SHAN Tingfang perform at the festival In November, CIUC participated in the South Canterbury International Festival. This year’s theme was the moon festival. Visitors to CIUC’s exhibit were able to participate in a number of hands on activities such as chopsticks games and calligraphy, and to eat ‘yuebing’ or ‘moon cakes’ – a traditional Chinese food eaten during the moon festival. Altogether, over 3000 people attended the festival. CIUC’s Mandarin Language Assistants DU Juan and WEN Jing performed traditional Chinese dance and guzheng respectively. Photo: Consul-General JIN Zhijian with students receiving awards Otago Chinese Prizegiving Christchurch Chinese Prizegiving On November 12, the 2015 Annual Chinese Prizegiving of South Island New Zealand was held at St Margaret's College, Christchurch. Distinguished guests present included JIN Zhijian, the Consul-General of P R China to Christchurch, Jimmy Chen, Christchurch City Councillor and Dr FU Jiwei, NZ Chinese Language Photo: Consul-General JIN National Advisor. In addition, presenting Stephen Rout more than 600 people, with the clasroom award including principals, teachers, students and family members of the students from various schools and universities in the South Island attended the prizegiving. Students were given prizes for excellence in Chinese, the calligraphy competition and for outstanding results in the On 17 November, CIUC with the Confucius Classroom at Columba College co-hosted the first Chinese Prizegiving in Dunedin. Columba College Principal Juliette Hayes gave a welcoming speech, and then Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull spoke about the historic relationship between Dunedin City and China, and hoped that the friendship between New Zealand and China will continue to be stable and sustainable. He also encouraged the students to continue to study Chinese language and culture and praised their efforts to date. A total of 123 students from 28 primary, secondary and tertiary schools were granted Chinese Excellence Awards, and another 29 students received prizes in the New Zealand Chinese Calligraphy Competition. A number of principals drove their students for over an hour to attend the ceremony. They said they wouldn’t let their students miss this rare opportunity. MLAs Farewell Three New Confucius Classrooms Opened On 28 November, CIUC held a farewell ceremony for fourteen MLAs who are returning to China. ConsulGeneral JIN Zhijian presented them with certificates of completion of service, and then they attended a dinner together. The returning MLAs had all worked very hard in New Zealand and will be missed by staff and students. CI FOCUS Lecture Photo: Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull and Deputy Consul-General LI Xin present plaques to the three new Confucius Classrooms At the Otago Prizegiving, three new Confucius Classrooms were presented with plaques. The new classrooms have been opened at South Otago High School, Otago Girls’ High School and St Kevin’s College, Oamaru. Deputy Consul General LI Xin first expressed his heartfelt congratulations to the three new CI Classrooms. He then spoke highly of the leading role Columba College Confucius Classroom has played in Chinese language teaching and learning. He hoped that the new three CI Classrooms will also provide opportunities for Chinese learning to both students and communities. The 6th New Zealand Chinese Calligraphy Competition This year, CIUC in conjunction with ILEP held the sixth nationwide calligraphy competition. The competition continues to grow in size, with 821 works submitted this year, of which 115 were awarded prizes. Michael Hayes from CIUC’s calligraphy class took out the first prize for Photo: Michael Hayes the tertiary brush pen winning artwork category. He has been studying calligraphy at the institute for three years. On Sunday 29 November, eminent Confucian scholar Professor Xianglong Zhang gave a lecture entitled “A Philosophical Explanation of the Confucian Position in Inter-Cultural Dialogue: Finding Ultimate Truth in Non-Universalism”. He is a based at Peking University, whilst concurrently serving as a distinguished professor of philosophy at Shandong University. He was previously director of the Phenomenology Research Center, and former president of the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy. His lecture was part of the Confucius Institute Forum of Cultural Understanding Series (CI FOCUS) of lectures and was held in conjunction with the 21st New Zealand Asian Studies Society Conference. Also present at the lecture was the Consul-General of the P R China in Christchurch JIN Zhijian, Jimmy Chen, Christchurch City Councillor and academics from a broad range of disciplines. Chinese Language in New Zealand Secondary Schools Conference CIUC, in conjuction with the other New Zealand Confucius Institutes, the NZ China Council, the NZ Asia Foundation and ILEP, co-hosted the Chinese Language in New Zealand Secondary Schools conference. One of the keynote speakers was Rachel Austen, from Lincoln High School. The conference was well attended by principals and Chinese teachers of schools around New Zealand/
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