What does International Women’s Day mean to you? Different people may have different focuses. At Queen’s, the campaign theme for this year is #EmbraceEquity
Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity
Today, we are pleased to introduce WANG Xinxin, a Queen’s School of Law student (LLM candidate in International Commercial & Business Law) to share her feel of being a departing daughter from her family, a female international student with great passion for her study and intercultural life in Belfast and elsewhere, through quoting the lines from one of her favourite ancient poems, the Ballad of Mulan.
We also thank WANG Xinxin for kindly sharing her Instagram account with us, which includes a video clip of greeting messages to her family and to all, in Chinese. If you have difficulties in understanding Mandarin, just click this Instagram post to read the English lines she added in the comment area.
We would like to invite all to come join in this is a special day of greeting and a call for celebration. Tell us how you celebrate this special day in the reply box below. We would love to hear more stories from you, too.
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!
The first half of the CNY celebrations went on extremely well, featuring the student-led Interactive Chinese Culture Displays and Demos, the CNY2023 Launch Event, and the art exhibitions both online and in-person. We would like to send our ‘thank-you’ to all of you who have contributed, participated in and helped with promotion. We hope that you have enjoyed yourselves.
In the following part of the CNY Programme, we continue to warmly welcome you to attend a series of culture talks, a fun time table tennis event and a guzheng introductory workshop. All QUB students and staff members are welcome!
Date: Friday 20 January 2023 Time: 13:00 – 16:00 Venue: 1st Floor Social Space, The Graduate School
About the Event:
Some of the main activities will include Chinese way of traditional writing in calligraphy, performances of musical instruments such as guzheng, guqin, and skills of practising taiji, Chinese dance and traditional Chinese costumes, all of which enriches the interactive topics through live demonstrations and hands-on practice.
Timeline
§ 13:00-13:15: Start and welcome
§ 13:15-13:30: Guzheng performance (DENG Wei)
§ 14:15-14:30: Taiji performance (DA Wenkai)
§ 15:00-15:10: Chinese classic dance (SONG Yihui)
This half-day event is free for all. Tea/coffee and refreshments (including a taste of Chinese traditional snacks) are provided. Booking is needed due to capacity. Please complete the registration form below.
As 2022 drew to an end, we wish everyone a happy and healthy 2023! We also would like to remind you that the Chinese New Year (CNY) – Year of the Rabbit – is fast approaching in three weeks’ time. How are you going to celebrate it?
CNY celebrations at Queen’s
We are pleased to let you know that the celebration programme at Queen’s has been underway, with a range of events to entertain all – students, staff members, as well as members of the public. You may find the CNY2023 Programme page via the link below and here are some activities for you to kick a start while more will be uploaded shortly.
In addition to our celebrations on campus, we would like to make you aware of the social celebration of Chinese New Year in Belfast, operated by Success Dragon and Lion Dance Association, a registered charity in Northern Ireland (Charity no. 105478), who had been supporting Queen’s celebrations before pandemic.
The Chinese New Year Celebration returns to the Ulster Hall Belfast on Sunday 22nd January 2023 celebrating the Year of Rabbit. Come to enjoy a day full of fun and joy, rich in Colours and Culture. With over 12 global dances and music not to be missed.
盛大的中國新年慶典再次重臨 Ulster Hall Belfast。 日期是一月廿二號星期日。超過十二個各式的民族表演包括舞龍舞獅，中國功夫和中國的傳統舞蹈表演等。請從速預訂門票！
Alan Lui, Master of The success Dragon & lion dance association
Please note that we are not involved in performances and ticket booking issues. All enquiries should be sent to the Association directly, following the contact information on the poster.
On Sunday 29th January the Ulster Museum will hosts this event including a selection of ArtEast NI members’ paintings displayed at the hall area from 12 pm on, and a talk/panel discussion at 2 pm on their themes, styles, and techniques, as well as their attitudes towards challenging lives throughout the pandemic period. There will also be an interactive workshop from 3 pm to encourage audience, especially those families with kids, to have some hands-on practice (e.g. painting, calligraphy, paper crafts) under the guidance of the artists.
The Language Centre has been proactively leading a number of language and culture-associated events, including the branded Chinese New Year celebrations, at Queen’s for years and we are looking to further engaging with students, staff members, as well as members of the public, to enable better inclusion and interaction.
To welcome the Year of the Rabbit (starting from Sun 22nd January 2023), we would like to invite you to join in this CNY2023 Drawing Competition with the theme of the Rabbit (Chinese character: 兔, pronounced as tù, similar to ‘too/two’). We believe that the image of rabbit is widely used in many arts forms, literatures, and modern designs in both Chinese and many other cultures, though the cultural connotations vary from one to another.
The drawing styles can be of any medium (such as sketching, oils, watercolour, sculpture, etc.) so long as they represent and reflect on your perceptions of the rabbit in your own or Chinese culture. All forms and techniques of presentation are encouraged.
The competition starts from the date when it is advertised and will close on Friday 13th January 2023. The finished drawings (one drawing each participant) should be saved as an electronic copy (JEPG/JPG format, max. 2MB) and emailed as an attachment to Dr Liang WANG at Liang.Wang@qub.ac.uk, using ‘CNY2023 Drawing Competition’ in the subject line. In the email, please briefly include a bio, including your name, your status (e.g. educational/professional background) and the illustration of your idea on the presentation.
All the entries will be uploaded online for exhibition. A judge panel will make a decision on the result which will be announced shortly after the closing date. The winners’ drawings may be used for further promotional purposes with acknowledgement. Prizes will be subsequently given out for collection.
Congratulations to the winners: Yilin CAO (曹意琳), Fangzhou YANG (杨方舟), Ya LI (李亚) for their Documentary ‘The Gift Tree‘!
About the prize
Anjool Maldé (7 July 1984 – 5 July 2009)Anjool Maldé Memorial Trust
Anjool Maldé (Jools to his friends and colleagues) […] lived a short but rich life, […] who touched so many lives in special, endearing and enduring ways.
Anjool Maldé Award is as a legacy to Jools’ memory, the Anjool Maldé Memorial Trust (The AMMT) awards prize money to the UK’s brightest best to reward, inspire and celebrate outstanding talent.
Co-hosting the Anjool Maldé Young Journalist Award, Queen’s University Belfast has jointly hosted the award ceremony at Queen’s Film Theatre to three Chinese students – Yilin CAO, Fangzhou YANG, Ya LI – all from School of Arts, English and Languages, majoring in Media and Broadcast Production.
About the Documentary
The documentary, ‘The Gift Tree‘, tells the story of Belfast’s ‘One Million Trees‘ environmental programme against the backdrop of Net-Zero Carbon Belfast plan. We made this documentary with the hope that it can reflect the value of a Net-Zero Carbon city and the need to protect the environment, thus calling on everyone to contribute to environmental protection.
Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya
In retrospect, the winners felt proud of being able to participate in, and contribute to, the competition that Queen’s University is involved in as a co-host. They further explained:
At one point, we saw an advertisement for admissions at Queen’s University, reporting that a student had won the award. This news aroused our great interest in choosing Queen’s for this course. We were really really amazed at seeing our names written on the award certificate this year. To be honest, being international students, producing a documentary and winning the prize takes a lot more effort than any home students will do because of the language barrier and communication across cultures. We had to get to know the places as quickly as possible, find the right people for interviews and understand and select the stories that deserve to be told, which we hadn’t built up in our experiences before. We were really thrilled when we finished the documentary. We are delighted to have won the 2022 Anjool Maldé Journalism Award for our documentary, thanks to the hard work of the three of us and the guidance of our supervisors and teaching assistants.
Winners as above with Dr Kurt Taroff (Head of School of Arts, English and Languages) and Frank Delaney (Subject Lead for Broadcast Production). Photo courtesy QUB.
Winners as above with Dr Kurt Taroff (Head of School of Arts, English and Languages) and Frank Delaney (Subject Lead for Broadcast Production). Photo courtesy QUB.
Certificate of Excellence – Anjool Maldé Journalism Award 2022
As well as collaborating on this documentary, the three of us are also very good friends in life. Although we have shared expertise in film production, we have diverse areas of specialism, which has served us well in the making of the documentary. Together we completed the shooting plan and the subsequent editing of the entire documentary, including but not limited to on-site interviews, video shooting, drone shooting, video production, script editing, post-editing, music and sound effects production. This is our learning practice in MA Media and Broadcast Production at Queen’s University Belfast. The process of making this documentary enabled us to gain a wealth of practical experience in documentary production. The honour of receiving the Anjool Maldé Journalism Award is the best proof our efforts and a testament to the value of this work.
The Anjool Maldé Journalism Award means a lot to the three of us. It’s a recognition of our abilities and a huge motivation for us to continue with the industry of media production. Bearing this in mind, in the future we will shoulder responsibility as media workers and journalists and continue to explore valuable stories and express them in the best form of media.
Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya
Watch the Documentary
Thanks to Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya’s kind offer, we would like to share with you all the documentary ‘The Gift Tree’ for appreciation. If you have any thoughts, ideas, and comments regarding the producers and the documentary, please leave your message in the box below. We are happy to pass it on to the contributors.
With the approaching of the new semester we are pleased to announce that the Language Centre course enrolment starts at 00:30 on Thursday 1st September. We offer over 80 classes in 14 different languages, including Chinese, that have both online and in person teaching. All classes will commence week beginning Monday 10 Oct 2022.
Online registration will be closed on Thursday 6 Oct and we welcome all to make an early registration as courses are extremely popular and fill up quickly.
We are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese language and cultural events 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.
We look forward to working with you in our future events.
Happy September and happy Mid-Autumn Festival which arrives early, falling on Saturday 10th September this year. 中秋节快乐 (Zhōngqiūjié kuàilè)!
Following the successful rolling out of the iRise Social and Wellbeing Event – A Taste of Chinese Tea with Guzheng Music in July, we would like to invite you to join our Mid-Autumn Festival celebration with a cultural talk on its history and social impact, with a taste of mooncakes (赏月 shǎng yuè) and MIDI keyboard performance (赏乐 shǎng yuè) –
MIDI Keyboard with Roses
Organised by The Language Centre and BAME & International Staff Network, QUB
Presented by Dr Liang Wang, The Language Centre
Contributed by Kehan (可瀚), BSc candidate in Music and Audio Production, School of Arts, English and Languages
Date: Friday 23rd September 2022 Time: 15:30 – 17:00 Venue: The Auditorium, McClay Library
Please note: Due to rescheduling we may have some limited spaces available. For colleagues who signed up for the event and still can attend, you don’t need to do it again. However, if you are no longer able to attend in-person, please email liang.wang[at]qub.ac.uk so that places can be made to others. Please register by 4.00pm on Thursday 22nd September.
