Preston 2011 Chinese New Year Party-- UCLan Confucius Institute as a Co-organizer
By admin on 2015-01-28

Chinese people always attach great importance to the Chinese New Year--the Spring Festival, and those overseas are no exception. As we are saying farewell to the Tiger Year and welcome to the Rabbit, the celebration climax was undoubtedly reached at the Preston 2011 Chinese New Year Party co-organized by Preston ukercn website, UCLan Chinese Society, UCLan Confucius Institute, and Preston Scholars Association, sponsored by DragonSea Shipping Company.

On the Eve of the Spring Festival, 53? at UCLan campus --University of Central Lancashire-- challenged its capacity of 500 seats embracing its honourable guests of all trades, Chinese teachers or learners or Chinese culture enthusiasts home and abroad, among whom were the representatives from UCLan Chancellor office and Preston Mayor office. The New Year dinner provided could be a miniature of the gist and atmosphere of the party—jiaozi, fried spring rolls, fried chicken—a colourful and wonderful union of the eastern and western flavours. And the performances were carefully selected and revised and rehearsed before they were presented to the audience.

The brightly-lit stage is decorated by the self-made red paper-cutting lanterns on which are New Year greetings from the UCLan Confucius Institute.

The senior teacher host from this Confucius Institute Paul Livesey appears on stage with extraordinary remarks tinted with both humour and wit in his Chinese tangzhuang costume, and accompanying is the lady-like junior teacher hostess Lin Li with her standard and charming Chinese Putonghua in her Chinese-red qipao.

The performances presented by UCLan Confucius Institute are various and voluminous. The starter is the brilliant Chinese ethnic costume show performed by lively and lovely foreign students of this institute, followed by their rap plus tongue twister song Chinese parole intervened by a taiji show by teacher Mingxia Qin in snow white like floating clouds, their air and action, elegance and eloquence arousing waves of applauses. This program, comments say, actually could make a perfect finale!

Also from this institute, teacher Rong Ai’s Tibetan dance Zhuoma leads us with her long sleeves to the grassy and snowy world roo--Tietan Plateau under the white clouds in its azure sky; the youngest of all on stage of only 15 years old, Yanqiu Zhang’s Yi Dance waves with the birds chirping and the flowers fragrance; the 16-year-old Chenxi Li’s classic Chinese erhu solo Racing horses does not betray anything of the na?ve or young age; the duet Please marry me tomorrow by student Lanren and Chinese overseas student Andy is trendy and star-like; teacher Lin Li’s Tale of a small town brings us back to the last century when Hong Kong and Taiwan songs were popular.

Together with all the performances presented by other organizers, take for example, the traditional Shuanghuang, short stage play Shangri la mian bar adapted from Xiao Shenyang’s 2009 performance Bu cha qian, the New Year Party witnessed the vast land and united nation and rich culture of our 56-ethnic-group motherland!

This party also has got local dance, Latin dance, original song first performance. The one that is most worthy of mentioning is, this New Year celebration witnesses the live show by the Liverpool star singer Sarina Van Ruth，one of the top-ten winners of the Britain nation-wide competition X-Factor of sweeping influence!

Of course the grandeur on stage depends much on the hard work behind. Teacher Han Xu of UCLan Confucius Institute plays the role of the general person-in-charge and director, and Jinzhi Zhou gives the full show of her aptitude as a TV show editor and director. Thanks also go to the Chinese Embassy in Britain who provides kindly with the ethnic costumes!

Enjoying the video and visual feast, the Chinese and foreign friends together ushered in the Rabbit Year with the first strike of the New Year clock. The party concluded with the chorus The unforgettable is tonight… words in the song Chinese parole reverberating in the air:

The whole world learning Chinese, Confucius’ Parole is getting more and more international…

What witty Chinese people, what beautiful Chinese parole…

The amazing performances UCLan Confucius Institute contributed to this party compose a most gorgeous chapter of the steadfast endeavour of all the staff and students of the institute! It also testifies that Chinese and foreign cultural exchange is blossoming, and Chinese civilization is welcome and renowned overseas! Let’s pray together: that our motherland be more prosperous and strong, and the friendship between Chinese and British people last long!