Happy Year of the Snake

Launch of the Chinese New Year celebrations (Wednesday 22 January) – open to all students and staff

With the arrival of the Year of the Snake on Wednesday 29 January, we would like to send our best wishes to all those who celebrate it and its variations (Lunar New Year in some Asian countries) and invite staff and students to join together on Wednesday 22 January for the main launch event, as below.

This is a collaborative event, organised by The Language Centre, One Elmwood Student Experience Team, Queen’s Students’ Union, CSSA, MSSNI, Ppi Belfast, and Queen’s iRISE Staff Network, supported by People and Culture Diversity and Inclusion team.

  • 12:00 – 13:00      Welcome Reception (Auditorium, McClay Library) – please register for this here.
  • 13:00 – 13:30      Dragon Dance and Parade – departing from McClay Library through Lanyon, finishing at One Elmwood Student Centre and Students’ Union)
  • 13:30 – 16:00      Cultural Fair and Performances (One Elmwood Foyer – Ground Floor)  no registration required

Chinese Culture Forum

The celebration of the Year of the Snake also announces the start of our Chinese Culture Forum in 2025, with the following talks contributed by Queen’s staff and students, including visiting academics and students from a range of disciplines. Check the programme button and book the events that you are interested in.

More events to be uploaded

We are open to proposals for a variety of events that you would wish to help with or contribute to developing our CCP2025 programme. Please do not hesitate to submit your proposals via the form below and we will get in touch with you in due course after your submission.

In Pictures: Pre-CNY Workshops

The Pre-CNY Workshops commenced with great enthusiasm, setting the tone for the celebrations ahead.

On the afternoon of Monday, 13th January, the Blue Sky Room at One Elmwood welcomed a diverse audience from various cultural and academic backgrounds. Attendees gathered to participate in three engaging workshops — Drawing the Snake, Chinese Calligraphy, and Paper Crafts — in preparation for the arrival of the Year of the Snake.

The Language Centre, in collaboration with One Elmwood Student Experience Team and Queen’s Students’ Union, is keen to invite students and staff members, as well as members of the public, to attend a wide range of events in the coming weeks, featuring

  • The launch of the Chinese New Year celebrations (Wednesday 22 January)
  • Year of the Snake Fair (Wednesday 22 January)
  • Culture talks
  • Film seminar and screening
  • Art exhibitions

For more information and to register click the button below

Happy Year of the Snake! 蛇年快乐!

Laba Festival and CNY2025

Happy Laba Festival (腊八节 Làbā jié)! Falling on the 8th day of the 12th month (called 腊月 làyuè) in the lunar calendar, this Laba Festival is often seen as the signal of the arrival of the Chinese New Year (aka. Spring Festival 春节 Chūn jié in China).

Laba congee cooked | Image@LiangWANG

On the day, in many places across China, mainly the north, northwest and southeast, people cook and eat Laba congee (腊八粥 làbā zhōu), typically made of rice, mixed beans, various nuts and dried fruits, etc., all of which are believed to be good for health. Having Laba congee can keep one feel warm and spirited in the cold and wet weather.

With the Laba Festival arriving today on 7th January this year, one can be certain that the Chinese New Year – Year of the Snake (蛇年 Shénián) starting from 29th January, is just around the corner.

Call for CNY participation

While we are busy preparing for the CNY2025 Programme, we would like to invite you to join us in a few activities that can bring the celebrative elements together. The following calls for participation are totally voluntary and you are welcome to attend one or all, as long as you feel like relevant and meaningful.

Pre-CNY Workshops
蛇年新春工作坊

This event is for all QUB students, staff and their families who currently reside in Belfast and NI.

Volunteering for CNY Events
春节活动志愿者招募

This event is for staff and students at Queen’s to volunteer at our series of events such as the CNY Gala, CNY Interactive Fair, Culture Workshops, etc.

Chinese Forum Talks

We always welcome public talks covering a variety of topics from students and scholars at Queen’s and from elsewhere.

We would like to thank you for your support and look forward to welcoming you to join our celebrations that are to come soon. Stay tuned!

Pre-CNY2025 Workshops

Happy New Year!

The Year of Snake arrives earlier than usual in 2025, falling on Wed 29th January. To kick off another festive celebration following the Christmas and New Year holidays, we warmly invite students, staff, and their families to participate in a series of workshops leading up to this special occasion. These workshops reflect the cherished traditions upheld by Chinese-speaking communities as they prepare to welcome the Spring Festival with cultural practices and festivities.

The Workshops

Participants can attend all of the workshops, or choose any one to attend. Children under 18 should be accompanied by their guardian.

Drawing the Snake – A fun competition to show your creativity and imagination across cultures of drawing snakes (蛇 shé), beyond the artistic and professional boundary.

Chinese calligraphy – A great chance to taste the writing of Chinese characters such as 福 (fú, fortune) and many other blessing words, as well as your names in Chinese characters.

Paper crafts – A hands-on experience of developing craftsmanship and making traditional decorations for the Chinese New Year celebration.

More events

Chinese calligraphy at the Ulster Museum

On Sunday 8th September, students and staff from Queen’s University hosted a Chinese calligraphy session for the general public at the Ulster Museum, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the charm and tradition of Chinese calligraphy (书法 shūfǎ).

Xiaoxiang MA, QUB PhD student and Dr Liang WANG, QUB Language Centre staff

This event, led by Dr. Liang Wang of the Language Centre and the calligrapher, Xiaoxiang MA, PhD student from School of Arts, English and Languages, was part of the ‘Bout Ye?‘ programme developed by Ulster Museum.

Structured as an informal, drop-in session, museum visitors were welcome to join at any time. The session provided a dynamic, personalized introduction to the aesthetics and cultural practice of Chinese calligraphy, including briefing about the fascinating history of Chinese characters (汉字 hànzì), their meanings and their stroke order (笔顺 bǐshùn) before having a try themselves! Practising on water mats (水写布 shuǐxiěbù) with traditional Chinese brushes (毛笔 máobǐ) means that there were endless opportunities to practice without the fear of making a mistake.

Participants learned that there are certain principles to follow in order to write characters correctly and beautifully, beginning generally from top to bottom, from left to right and from outside to inside to close frames last – a task that proved easier said than done!

Our wonderful team of student assistants from Chinese Language Interest Group (C-LIG) at Queen’s were there to support the event. We also engaged with museum visitors, learning about their personal experiences with Chinese culture, both locally and globally.

Before their leaving with great fun, visitors, as well as museum staff who kindly helped with the session, were offered a chance to receive a Chinese name (中文名字 Zhōngwén míngzi) by student volunteer and calligraphy expert, Xiaoxiang, who also explained the meaning and pronunciation of each character and how that would match nicely with their original names – what a meaningful and memorable end to their visit!

The session received very positive feedback from the visitors, who enjoyed their participation and expressed their joy in the following words:

We would also like to extend our thanks to the Museum staff who kindly provided this opportunity for us to organise this calligraphy event. We wish to provide more sessions in the future, on campus or at Museum, or elsewhere to generate more interest from a wider community.

Author: Lauren McShane
Editor: Liang Wang

Happy Year of the Loong

The 龙 Lóng (or Loong / Chinese Dragon) has just arrived at Queen’s!

What an exciting day to welcome the auspicious 龙 Lóng (or Loong / Chinese Dragon) to Queen’s One Elmwood on Thursday 8th February, regardless of the blustery weather (which was said to be accompanying the Loong)!

Dragon Dance performed by QUB Success Lion Dance Club at One Elmwood social space.

Over 60 staff and student representatives from a range of diverse cultural backgrounds celebrated the launch of Year of The Chinese Dragon programme, jointly organised by the Language Centre, iRISE Staff Network, Student Experience Team, The Graduate School, Chinese Students and Scholars Association, supported by Diversity, Inclusion and Staff Wellbeing Unit, and partially sponsored by the QUB Annual Fund.

Professor Margaret Topping, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, welcomed the value of contact between different languages and cultures for the benefit of enhanced mutual respect through intercultural exchange.

Professor Margaret Topping, PVC (Global Engagement), delivered a welcome speech to the audience.

We wish that this celebration programme on the Year of The Chinese Dragon, as part of our Celebrating Cultural Diversity at Queen’s scheme, will make a contribution to the multicultural campus development, which sees differences as strength to foster an environment of open-mindedness and acceptance.

The Launch event featured student/alumni performances including guzheng music and classical dance, QUB Staff Wellbeing Choir’s singing of both Chinese and local songs, and the bustling and exciting Dragon Dance inside One Elmwood, followed by an interactive CNY Fair with cultural displays.

The CNY celebration programme includes a three-week-long events and it welcomes all students and staff members to choose their favourate ones to attend in the coming two weeks. For full programme and registration links, please visit CCP2024 Homepage.

More photos will be added to our FB account and if you wish to share yours with us, please attach them via the Comment box below, or click the link for multiple uploading

Call for Volunteering for CNY Celebrations

Happy International Volunteer Day (05/12)!

The Language Centre is organising a Chinese New Year Celebration Information Session to mark the International Volunteer Day (05/12) on Monday 04/12 (13:00-15:00) at the Auditorium, McClay Library. If you are interested in what’s going to happen and how you can get involved, feel free to pop in and join us in the session.

Call for volunteers

As the Year of the Dragon (龙年春节) is arriving in Feb 2024, we are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese New Year celebration at Queen’s. It could be in the form of a variety of cultural performances, or language/culture-related topics and skills, and is open to both Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese speaking volunteers.

If you would like to express your interest in volunteering for the preparation and delivery of the proposed events, feel free to scan the QR code, or click the Form URL below to submit your interest.

We also look forward to working with you in our future language and cultural events.

Language Centre Course Enrolment

The second enrolment for courses, including Chinese, to start in January 2024 has now been available online. Anyone wishing to learning Chinese can find relevant course timetable and registration information from The Language Centre Homepage.

Call for participation

Translating Age – Sharing experiences of being an older woman in a new country

This post is circulated on behalf of Professor Tess Maginess from School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, who are looking for older female participants of diverse cultural backgrounds, including those from the Chinese community to share their experiences of living in Northern Ireland. Any queries related to this project need to be directed to Professor Maginess (see contact information below).

解读年龄 —— 年长女性在新移居国的经历分享

如果您是一位年龄超过55岁、现居北爱尔兰的女性,我们将帮您有机会认识来自不同文化背景的女性并分享你们的经历。我们非常欢迎您的加入!

我们将邀请您参加由英国女王大学开放学习部成人教育项目举办的免费工作坊!这些工作坊都非常随意,您不需要任何资质即可参加。

我们希望通过聆听来自不同国家的故事、诗歌 (等) 来了解大家在移居国的老龄生活。如果您希望在谈论您的感受时得到一些帮助,您可以带上您家中的年轻成员一同参加。

参加本项目有何好处?

  • 分享您自己的文化并了解其他文化。
  • 分享您作为一位年长女性的经历。
  • 结交新朋友。
  • 学习新技能并获得大学的“认可”。
  • 让别人听到您的声音。
  • 学习如何成为一名合作研究者。
  • 参与制作一个包含您的观点和您自己的故事、歌曲、诗歌、手工作品的网站。

项目何时开展?

项目工作坊将于今年9月开始,秋、冬季(新年)期间每周一次。

如何报名参加?

请发送电子邮件至Tess Maginess教授 t.maginess@qub.ac.uk 或 Federica Ferrieri 博士federica.ferrieri@outlook.com

Happy UN Chinese Language Day

The date for the Chinese day was selected from Guyu (“Rain of Millet”), which is the 6th of 24 solar terms in the traditional East Asian calendars, to pay tribute to Cangjie. Cangjie is a very important figure in ancient China, claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes and four pupils, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. From then on, Chinese people celebrate the day Guyu in honour of Cangjie. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually begins around April 20.

The UN

On this occasion we provide this special edition to invite you to join us in celebrating the charm of the Chinese language – in its written form through calligraphy and spoken form through recitation.

SONG Yihui (宋一卉), a recently graduated doctoral student from School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, has a number of hobbies rooted in traditional Chinese culture, including calligraphy, classic dancing and Hanfu costume. Below she tells us how she has maintained her practice of Chinese calligraphy since childhood.

I first learned calligraphy when I was eight years old, probably because of my curiosity facilitated by my parents. At that time, I started from learning to write the basic strokes – horizontal and vertical, which required a lot of patience and perseverance. I was so envious of other fellows who could exercise their skillful hands freely. However, after learning Yan-style of calligraphy for three years when I wrote with more confidence, I had to put down my brush and switched my full attention to my study which became more demanding. It was not until in my college time that I picked up my brush again with my genuine passion for calligraphy. This flame of enthusiasm has been kept for my life in the UK. When I was packing up my luggage, I had no hesitation to include my beloved set of calligraphy treasures in the suitcase.

To me, calligraphy is a journey of time and space through the written form of our language, with which I could always conduct spiritual dialogues with our ancestors thousands of years ago.

Below is a selected collection of Yihui’s calligraphic works.

WEI Ziqing (魏子晴) is currently doing MA Interpreting at the School of Arts, English and Language. Among her many talents she has a strong passion for recitation. In the recent QUB Multilingual Poetry and Music Festival she contributed to the event by doing a Chinese poetry recitation – ‘The Chinese Language’. With her kind permission, we invite her to share with us her recitation.

To be honest, my performance on the day was not really as perfect as I thought. However, I found that at least three girls from the audience were moved to tears, to my great surprise. One of the girls later said to me that even though she could not understand the language, her heart was greatly touched by the sound of language and she couldn’t help shedding tears.

Below is the Ziqing’s Instagram post on her recitation, followed by the bilingual text versions.

中国话
有一种语言,它 很神秘,它蕴涵着一个民族上下几千年 悲喜交加的情感;

有一种语言,它很古老,古老到那刻在骨头上的文字里都找不到 它的起源;

有一种语言,它很丰富,阴阳上去中 回荡着 慷慨激昂 倾诉着 温宛 缠绵;

这,便是中国话,

一个古老的 东方神话!

中国话,

是如诗如画的表达,

“树索索而摇枝,马得得而驰骋”

——哪一种语言  

有 如此逼真的描摹?

“落霞与孤鹜齐飞,秋水 共长天一色”

——哪一种语言  

能说出如此图画般的美丽?

“春江潮水连海平,海上明月共潮生⋯⋯”

——哪一种语言 能有 如此动听的节律?

“我失骄阳君失柳,杨柳轻扬直上重霄九”

——哪一种语言

能一语译透你丰厚的含义?

中国话 是中国人

心灵深处的吐纳。

是屈原的长叹 ,项羽的啸吼

是李白的浪漫 ,杜甫的讥讽,

是“五四”前夜,

李大钊在拊掌欢呼

《庶民的胜利》,

是面对敌人的屠刀,

鲁迅在指斥《无声的中国》,

是迎着特务的枪弹,

闻一多拍案而起,弘扬正义!

是礼炮声中毛泽东庄严宣告:民族 站起!

那黄河的不羁和刚强,是中国话!

那长江的奔放和潇洒,是中国话!

那大山的雄武,高原的粗犷,是中国话!

那江南的温柔,水乡的秀雅,是中国话!

听,中国话正在通过我的喉头在联合国的讲台上响起

–那么亲切,优美,

—那么有力,伟大!

中国话 你属于一个伟大的民族,

一个朝阳升腾的天地!

我爱你,我们的 中国话!!!

The Chinese Language
There is a language – it is very mysterious and contains the emotional ups and downs of a nation for thousands of years;

There is a language – it is so ancient that its origin cannot be found in the characters engraved in bones;

There is a language – it is very rich, resonating with generosity and passion, warmth and tenderness in the alternation of Yin and Yang;

This is the Chinese language.

An ancient oriental myth!

Chinese language

is an expression like poetry and painting.

‘The trees rustle and shake their branches, The horses gallop and run freely.’

–which language 

has such a vivid illustration?

“Rosy evening clouds and the lonely duck fly together; The autumn water shares the same colour with the sky.”

–which language can tell such picturesque beauty?

‘The spring tide of the river joins the sea, and the bright moon rises with the tide on the sea…’

–Which language can have such an enchanting rhythm?

“I’ve lost my sun, you’ve lost your willow, the willow lightly rises to the Ninth Heaven”

–what other language

Can translate the richness of your meaning in one word?

Chinese language is the breathing of the Chinese people’s soul.

It is the long sigh of Qu Yuan, the roar of Xiang Yu,

The romance of Li Bai, the irony of Du Fu.

It is Li Dazhao cheering and applauding
“The Victory of the Common People” on the eve of May Fourth Movement,

It is Lu Xun criticizing “The Silent China” in the face of enemy’s butcher’s knife,

It is Wen Yiduo rising up and promoting justice in the face of bullets from secret agents,

It is Mao Zedong solemnly declaring “The Chinese nation has stood up!” amidst the sound of salute.

The recklessness and fortitude of the Yellow River is Chinese language!

The unrestrained and boldness of the Yangtze River is Chinese language!

The magnificence of the mountains, the ruggedness of the plateau, is Chinese language!

The gentleness of the south of the Yangtze River, the elegance of the water town, is Chinese language!

Listen, the Chinese language is echoing through my voice on the podium of the United Nations

-So friendly, beautiful,

-So powerful, great!

Chinese language , you belong to a great nation, a world where the sun rises!

I love you, our Chinese language!

Sign up for a Chinese course

If you would like to learn more about the beauty of the Chinese language and are interested in attending a course, you are welcome to check our courses below and register as soon as you can. The cutting off date is rightly on Thursday 20 April, the UN Chinese Language Day! Don’t miss out!

Happy Lantern Festival

While the Lantern Festival is arriving on Sunday 5th February, which signals the end of Chinese Spring Festival season, we are still intoxicated with the celebrative atmosphere socially.

Following the success of the ArtEast Club’s ‘Chinese Brushes in Belfast and Beyond’ Exhibition and Workshop in Ulster Museum on Sunday 29th January, the ArtEast core members Jean, Lily and Wenli are embracing another art exhibition ‘East to West- Magic Brush 2023’ at ISLAND Arts Centre in Lisburn, starting from Saturday 4 Feb 2023 until Wednesday 1 Mar 2023.

All visitors are welcome! We wish the exhibition a great success!

Click here to find the details from Island Arts Centre

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