Our student of pre-IBDP class: Alisa, took an active part in the @Chinese Dragon Boat Festival.

„In the event, I volunteered to teach Chinese calligraphy. I was surprised that the things that have always been easy for me can cause a lot of trouble for others. I taught the participants how to write the phrase ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ on a paper with the brush and after practicing for a while they wrote it on the bookmarks.

Some participants asked me to teach them how to write their own names in Chinese.

It was a very enlightening experience for me.

I feel happy that after practicing calligraphy for years, I can finally use my skills to introduce others to new things and spread my culture.”

~ Dear Alisa, Congratulations on your active volunteering and sharing your cultural heritage with others!

What is the Dragon boat festival?

„Dragon Boat festival (端午 duān wǔ) is one the most important traditional festivals in China. As a UNESCO intangible heritage, it is not only celebrated in China, but also in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the US. It occurs on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar, this year it was on the 31st of May. Dragon Boat festival commemorates Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet from the Waring State period who committed suicide by drowning himself after his country ceased to exist. Local people raced out on dragon boats, hoping to retrieve the folk hero’s body and feed the fish with sticky rice balls in order to stop them from eating the martyr’s body.

The festival is accompanied by numerous activities, including Dragon Boat racing, drinking realgar wine, wearing perfume pouches, hanging calamus and wormwood, egg balancing and making five color bracelets. The event I attend also featured pitch-pot (投壶throwing sticks into a jar from a set distant) and combating the Five Poisons (snakes, scorpions, centipedes, toads and spiders).”