COVID-Friendly Chinese Spring Festival Celebrations

From Dr. Bao: The Chinese Language Program in the World Language Department came up with a new way to celebrate the traditional Chinese Spring Festival while under pandemic conditions this year. In addition to having a COVID-friendly Chinese New Year lunch from a local Chinese restaurant on February 10 and a brief Lion Dance campus parade on February 11, each class prepared and presented unique performances. All the students had great fun! The two fifth grade classes, class K and class N performed two folk dances. The one shown in the condensed video is called Chun tian zai na li (Where is Spring?). Chinese 1 class presented Chinese jump rope, a robust and energetic fun fitness group game. Chinese 2H students performed a beautiful song, ting wo shuo xie xie ni (Listen to Me Say Thank You). Chinese 3H competed in an intense chopstick-using race (a potential best participant was absent on the race day, so competition was tight with the winning spot up for grabs!). Chinese 4H and Chinese 5H classes did a beautiful play, qi xi jie de lai li (the original Chinese Valentine's Day) to portray how Chinese Valentine's Day came into being. Here is the condensed video of the performances. For more detailed performances, especially the marvelous narrator of the play who was not portrayed in the short video, check out the entire video. Thank you to Mr. and Mrs. Baker, and Mrs. Jennings for the video help and technical support!