Celebrating Chinese Culture in Hawke's Bay Schools

Written by Paula Kasper, Tui Tuia | Learning Circle facilitator.

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Wei Zhao Chinese Wushu Master faces the backs of student participants whilst instructing WuShu Martial Arts during Celebrating Chinese Culture in Hawke’s Bay Schools week.

Are you fascinated by Chinese culture? Many schools across Hawke’s Bay were!  Following the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, 6 schools encapsulating 13 groups totalling 370 teachers and students were engaged in a unique opportunity to explore and immerse themselves in Chinese cultural activities. Riding the wave of Kung Fu Panda 4 movie release, the workshops related to Kung Fu in English (Gong Fu in Chinese). This contemporary form of martial arts is known as Wushu 武术.

Wushu blends elements of performance and martial arts. This was capably instructed by Wei Zhao, New Zealand Head Wushu Coach. At these fully funded workshops, participants actively followed instructions, performed moves, manipulated fans, obtained relevant history and information whilst gaining Chinese language and cultural knowledge. It was great to be able to gift Tui Tuia Chinese language wall posters and ‘Weka’s Waiata’, a tri-lingual storybook written in Chinese, te reo Māori and English, to each participatory school.

These workshop facilitated opportunities to engage, share and further enhance the connection of Chinese languages in our community were gratefully received. Many students were effusing that this was “So interesting!”, “Challenging!” and “Lots of fun!”. Their delight and fascination in sharing language and culture similarities is an all-important part of raising awareness and fostering their roles in cultural and global diversity.

As the Ministry of Education purports in their Learning Languages framework, exploring “different world views in relation to their own” encourages interest. During these workshops, an experiential awareness of Chinese language and culture knowledge was shared.

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He taonga ngā reo katoa
All languages are to be treasured