Boys across the school joined together this week to celebrate Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Snake.
Our boarders in Eagle House started the New Year celebrations on Wednesday with hóngbāo (Mandarin) or lai see (Cantonese): lucky red envelopes filled with rice-paper money or sweets as a wish for good luck and fortune in the New Year. The boys also enjoyed a Chinese feast in the evening, delighting in sharing food and culture together.
Jeff, Tiantian, Robin, Yinhong, Brandon and August gave a brilliant ‘Curiosity’ assembly to all boys in the Prep School, sharing some brilliant and unique Chinese inventions. Boys were challenged to guess what the items were and what they did. Some proved very tricky and sparked brilliant ideas and debate, such as the Seismoscope (a device used to detect the direction of earthquakes, considered the world’s first seismometer) and the South-Pointing Chariot (an ancient vehicle with a mechanism ensuring that the figure on top always pointed South, regardless of how the chariot turned).
The celebrations continued in the classroom as well. Year 3 boys tried their hand at tangrams, mathematical puzzles developed in China over 200 years ago and enjoyed fortune cookies. In EAL, boys created magnificently folded paper snakes to celebrate this year’s animal, the snake, which symbolizes wisdom and creativity.
“While the traditional celebrations continue for many days to come, may we wish all our Chinese families Xin nian kuai le or Gong hei fat choy.”
