TAG-Confucius Institute Holds a Series of Celebrations for Mid-Autumn Festival and Teachers’ Day

September 10 witnessed both Mid-Autumn Festival and Teachers’ Day. TAG-Confucius Institute (TAG-CI) held a series of online and offline activities to celebrate the festivals, including introduction to the Mid-Autumn Festival, traditional festive food, moon-related poems, arts, festival greetings to the teachers, games, enjoying the moon,  etc.  The Institute was filled with festive atmosphere.

In the introduction to the Mid-Autumn Festival, through watching short videos and listening to the teacher’s stories, the students not only learned about the historical legends related to the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as “Hou Yi Shoots the Suns” “Chang’e Flies to the Moon” “Jade Rabbit Makes Heavenly Medicine”， but also understood the origin of the names of “Jade Rabbit” lunar rover and “Chang’e” lunar probe. They also realized the specific content and significance of cultural customs such as moon watching and reunion. 

The students who loved Chinese cartoons actively participated in story telling and shared the interesting “secret” of “rabbits on the moon”. In the following “Mid-Autumn Questions and Answers”, the students enthusiastically answered the questions and got full marks.

In the Mid-Autumn food section, the teacher shared with the students the food that Chinese people often eat during the Mid-Autumn Festival: various moon cakes, seasonal fruits, sweet-scented, etc. When it came to moon cakes, the student Ameera happily told everyone that her family are very interested in Chinese food and she wanted to try to make moon cakes with jujube paste filling by herself.
In the section of poetry, the teacher led the students to appreciate well-known poems about the moon and explain their meaning. 

The moon of Mid-Autumn Festival is a symbol of reunion. In the eyes of Chinese people, the moon of Mid-Autumn Festival is undoubtedly the roundest, brightest, most beautiful and most touching moon. 

The moon is also the carrier of human love, expressing people’s yearning for their hometown, relatives and friends. The students and the teacher recited the classic sentences loudly to feel the beauty of classical Chinese poetry.

In the art section, the students were singing, dancing, drawing and enjoying the happiness and harmony brought by the Mid-Autumn Festival.  Some students wrote their love and blessings for the teacher on the moon cakes they drew, and some made greeting cards for the teacher and sent their best wishes for Teachers’ Day. The teacher also sent e-cards to the students, which were welcomed and loved by the students.

Games were the children’s favorite. They participated in throwing-arrows-into-a-pot game and lucky draw game, and enjoyed the pleasure brought by games.

The last section was enjoying the full moon on the Mid-Autumn Festival night. 

The students went outside to enjoy the most beautiful moon and also took pictures of the full moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival was so charming and attractive, and the moon scene was so intoxicating. In this beautiful night, people in the distance would surely have a myriad of thoughts while appreciating the moon and stars and listening to the chirping of insects.

Through the celebrations, the students learned about the customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the cultural connotation of the Festival, the great charm of traditional Chinese culture, the traditional virtue of respecting teachers and valuing education. The celebrations contributed to cultural exchanges between China and Jordan in a warm and pleasant atmosphere.