TAG-Confucius Institute Celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival

On June 20, TAG-Confucius Institute (TAG-CI) held activities to celebrate the traditional Chinese festival—Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Duanwu Festival. Mr. Mamoun Abu Al-Sebaa, Jordanian Director of TAG-CI, Dr. Yang Songfang, Chinese Director of TAG-CI, Ms. Randa Al-Yabroudi, Deputy Director of TAG-CI, the teachers of TAG-CI, the students and their parents, local people and Chinese people in Jordan gathered together to experience the charm of the traditional Chinese festival. Xinhua News Agency conducted on-site interviews and reports on the event.
The celebrations included Duanwu cultural class, weaving five-color bracelets and making Zongzi, also called sticky rice dumplings.
Duanwu Cultural Class
Ms. Zhou Tong was in charge of the children’s cultural class and Ms. Sheng Guannan was in charge of the adults’ cultural class. 
In the children’s class, Ms. Zhou first explained the origin and customs of the Dragon Boat Festival to the children through videos, and the fierce dragon boat race made the children particularly excited. Then, she taught the children to use paper leaves and paper balls to make paper Zongzi, which made them full of expectations for the real Zongzi to be made later. Finally, she helped the children review the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival in the form of knowledge quiz. They actively participated in and enjoyed it. 
In the adults’ class, Ms. Sheng introduced the origin and customs of the Dragon Boat Festival to the students and parents in detail through videos, pictures and explanations, including the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan’s story and festival customs such as hanging wormwood, dragon boat racing, eating Zongzi, wearing sachets and five-color threads. Then, she gave the students some questions to check how much they had mastered about the Dragon Boat Festival. Finally the students were asked to tell the story about the Dragon Boat Festival and the classroom was filled with rich festive atmosphere.

Weaving Five-Color Bracelets
After the students had a certain understanding of the Dragon Boat Festival, Ms. Sun Na led them to weave five-color bracelets. The five-color bracelet, also known as the five-color silk or long life thread, has a beautiful meaning of praying for good luck and blessings for health. Ms. Sun first distributed the prepared weaving materials to everyone, and then patiently taught them how to weave a colorful bracelet. Under the guidance of the teacher, everyone successfully wove a brightly colored bracelet soon. Some students even used their imagination to weave other styles of bracelets. They put on the colorful bracelet for each other and conveyed the best wishes to each other.
Making Zongzi
With the laughter of the students came the climax of this event—making sweet Zongzi. To ensure the smooth progress of the event, TAG-CI purchased high-quality raw materials such as sticky rice, Zongzi leaves and Zongzi threads in advance. With the help of several Chinese parents in Jordan, Ms. Guan Xia organized all the teachers and students to gather around the table and taught them to make Zongzi. The students watched the teacher to pick up Zongzi leaves, scoop up sticky rice, wrap it and tie a cotton thread smoothly. They thought it was not difficult to make Zongzi and were eager to try. But when they personally made it, they realized that it was not easy at every step. The “mischievous” sticky rice would “escape” from the Zongzi leaves when you were not careful, to the extent that the students occasionally made screams such as “ah” “oh” “leaking”, etc. causing laughter from everyone. The whole event hall became a sea of joy. Later, all the students and guests sat together to eat the boiled Zongzi and expressed good wishes of “Good health on Dragon Boat Festival” to each other.
In the interview, Dr. Yang Songfang said that in September 2009, the Dragon Boat Festival was enlisted into Masterpieces of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO, and became the first traditional Chinese festival to have been enlisted in the world’s intangible cultural heritage, which not only carries profound historical culture, national feelings and national identity, but also is a vivid reflection of traditional Chinese culture going abroad, and makes more people experience the beauty of Chinese culture. The students expressed their love for the Dragon Boat Festival and thanks to TAG-CI for providing them with the opportunity to experience traditional Chinese culture. 
This event not only enhanced the students and their parents and the local people’s understanding of the Dragon Boat Festival and its historical significance, but also deepened their love for Chinese culture and cultivated their friendly feelings for China.