Dragon Boat Racing

Posted on 2 June 2022 by Liang Wang

Happy Chinese Dragon Boat Festival! 龙舟节快乐！

The Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu Festival (端午节 Duānwǔ jié), is a traditional Chinese festival with a history of over 2000 years. It occurs on the 5th day of the 5th month in Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on Friday 3rd June this year.

Duanwu Festival is widely known as Dragon Boat Festival (龙舟节 Lóngzhōu jié) to the rest of the world, as one of its celebrative events – dragon boat racing – has become so popular (受欢迎 shòu huānyíng) in the world.

Today, we would like to invite Dr YAO Xudan (姚旭丹) to introduce dragon boat racing and share with us her interesting experiences of joining in races when she was in Belfast and more recently in Manchester.

Image@LiangWANG

YAO Xudan (姚旭丹) studied her PhD in Queen’s University Belfast from 2014 to 2018. Afterwards, she joined the National Graphene Institute, University of Manchester, as a postdoctoral research associate. Currently, she is continuing her research in Queen Mary College, University of London.

Dragon Boat Racing in Belfast

When I was doing my PhD at Queen’s, I joined dragon boat racing as a paddler twice in 2015 and 2016, as a member of Team QUB, which were organised by Chinese Welfare Association NI. People from different professional backgrounds, including universities, associations, boat clubs, etc., signed up for the events with full enthusiasm. Chinese food was prepared and supplied to all participants. Although we did not win in the end, everyone enjoyed the teamwork spirit (团队精神 tuánduì jīngshén) during racing, despite the bad weather. My colleagues from Spain and India were so excited that they wanted very much to follow up celebrations as such in the future. I believe that our traditional culture (传统文化 chuántǒng wénhuà) could be shared and accepted widely in this engaging way.

Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang
Dragon Boat Race 2015 | Image@LiangWang

Dragon Boat Racing in Manchester

On 29th May 2022, the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival was held in Manchester, with 36 teams from universities, companies and institutions participating in the competition. With my previous experience of Belfast races I joined one of the University of Manchester teams, which was formed by all girls. The morning was a bit wet but fortunately it became sunny during the race. Again, although we could not enter into the final competition (决赛 juésài), we were satisfied with our great team performance and enjoyed ourselves. Apart from the racing, the festival also included Chinese kung fu performance (功夫表演 gōngfu biǎoyǎn), singing (唱歌 chànggē), dancing (跳舞 tiàowǔ) and tasting (品尝 pǐncháng) traditional Chinese food such as zongzi (粽子 zòngzi), baozi (包子 bāozi), marinated eggs (卤蛋 lǔdàn), making it an exciting and fun experience.

Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao
Dragon Boat Race in Manchester | Image@XudanYao

Overall, dragon boat racing is really one of the wonderful occasions for people to get together and celebrate our traditional festival, as well as to enhance intercultural communication and understanding between people of different communities.

About dragon boat racing

Dragon boats are human-powered watercrafts originally made of wood, and in modern times upgraded into carbon or glass fibre composites, as well as other lightweight materials. They are universally decorated with a Chinese dragon head and tail. For racing, a standard dragon boat typically consists of 20 paddlers, one drummer facing toward the paddlers, and one steerer. However, there are also small boats with a capacity of 10 paddlers.

Image@XudanYao

Author: YAO Xudan
Editors: Martin Duffy and WANG Liang

Have you joined any boat racing events before? You are very welcome to share your experience by using the comment box below.

World Baking Day

Posted on 15 May 2022 by Liang Wang

Various parts of the world choose different dates for World Baking Day, e.g., the two most common dates are the 15^th or 17^th of May. For baking lovers what matters the date is less relevant than the opportunity for baking lovers to please themselves and their family, friends and neighbours.

Today, we invite Xiuying DENG (also see Eggcellent Easter) to share with us her experience of baking a Basque cheesecake, which is a type of cheesecake with a strong burnished flavour. The Basque cheesecake is baked until the outside of the cake is charred. It is named after the region’s name, the Basque in Spain.

As a foodie with sweet tooth, I tried to learn to bake Basque cake quite a while ago. The first attempt was so successful and the entire process didn’t take much time. I really found it enjoyable and full of confidence for the next one.
– Xiuying deng

Well, here is the way of how to make a Basque cheesecake with only a few required ingredients. At a grocery store or supermarket, one can easily find and buy the following items:

granulated sugar (白砂糖 bái shā táng)
Greek style yogurt (希腊酸奶 Xīlà suānnǎi)
fresh whipping cream (新鲜淡奶油 xīnxiān dàn nǎiyóu)
cornflour (玉米淀粉 yùmǐ diànfěn)
cream cheese (奶油奶酪 nǎiyóu nǎilào)
eggs (蛋 dàn)

Required ingredients: cream cheese 250g, fresh whipping cream 150g, yogurt 200g, two eggs, sugar 55g and cornflour 10g.

When all these items are ready, just get started. The following is the process of making a Basque cheesecake. Let’s go –

Step 1: Add cream cheese, yogurt and two eggs in a bowl and stir them well.

Step 2: After stirring evenly, add some sugar and cornflour in the same bowl.

Step 3: Pour the mixed paste into the mold, and put it into the preheated oven (turn the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 20 minutes; then turn it up to 200 degrees, bake for another 10 minutes.)

Step 4: Cool the baked cake and put it in the fridge for 4 hours.

Step 5: Use your creative mind to decorate it.

The above is the process of making Basque cake. Finally, remember to take nice photos of the presentation so that you can have your cake and eat it. I hope you all can manage to create delicious cakes!

Author: Xiuying DENG, MA candidate in Marketing, Queen’s Management School
Editor: Martin Duffy, MA candidate in Irish Studies with a focus on Public History at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast.

Eggcellent Easter

Posted on 17 April 2022 by Liang Wang

Happy Easter Break! 复活节假期快乐！

Did you buy some eggs or egg-shaped chocolate for Easter? They look so cute and tasty that one can hardly resist the temptation not to buy one.

Chocolate eggs in a supermarket. *Image@LiangWANG*

But why it has to be eggs or egg-shaped thing during Easter? Here’s the explanation:

‘The egg, an ancient symbol of new life, has been associated with pagan festivals celebrating spring. From a Christian perspective, Easter eggs are said to represent Jesus’ emergence from the tomb and resurrection. Decorating eggs for Easter is a tradition that dates back to at least the 13th century, according to some sources. One explanation for this custom is that eggs were formerly a forbidden food during the Lenten season, so people would paint and decorate them to mark the end of the period of penance and fasting, then eat them on Easter as a celebration.’
History

Besides buying ready-made egg decorations from shops, painting eggs is one of the most popular activities for not only those families with young children, but also others who want to have creative experience with lots of fun during Easter. International student ambassadors from Queen’s recently joined an egg decorating event, organised by AHSS (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), to celebrate their Easter on campus.

Key words in Chinese

复活节 (Fùhuó jié) – Easter
装饰 (zhuāngshì) – to decorate
绘画 (huìhuà) – to paint
彩绘 (cǎihuì) – colour painting
蛋 (dàn) – egg
巧克力 (qiǎokèlì) – chocolate

How did it go? We invite one of the International Student Ambassadors, Xiuying, to share her experience with you.

Xiuying DENG is currently a postgraduate student in Marketing from Queen’s University Management School. Images@XiuyingDENG

I was so lucky to be invited and it was such an amazing experience! Drawing is not my strong point at all, to be honest, so I felt a bit nervous before getting started. Here I chose to paint a chick at first, which is really out of the ordinary with different colors because it wore a pair of glasses HAHA! Then, I “dressed up” three plastic eggs. As you can see, some were with colored ribbons and some were with small spots.

At the end of the event, we all voted together to see which was the best. Fortunately, I was awarded a souvenir by Queen’s. I felt that my drawing was not that bad. Anyway, it was an unforgettable experience for me to celebrate Easter in the UK, especially with the cohort of 10 lovely student ambassadors!

We hope you have had fun together with us. If you have done your own egg paintings or other decorations, you are very welcome to share your photos here for a collection of ‘eggcellent’ show.

Easter bunny and eggs – Image@XiaoxuanXIA

Celebrating Chinese Language Day

Posted on 13 April 2022 by Liang Wang

联合国中文节快乐！(Liánhé Guó Zhōngwén jié kuàilè) Happy UN Chinese Language Day!

The Chinese language is one of the six official languages used in the United Nations and together with Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish, each of them is designated with a date to ‘celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization’.

Celebrating Chinese Language Day at Queen’s, Image@LiangWang

On Wednesday 13th April, just before the university’s Easter closure, The Language Centre organised a small-scale celebration with students – both Chinese and non-Chinese – at the McClay Library, Queen’s University Belfast. This is the first on-campus in-person Chinese event after a two-year-long isolation working from home.

Small but highly interactive with lots of fun, the cohort not only learned about the culture of this special day, but also explored a range of Chinese language resources and platforms in support of intercultural language learning both online and in physical settings.

The third semester language course enrolment remains open until Thursday 21st April. Check Mandarin Chinese course page for more details.

– With Kristoff, Sijie, Guangyan and Jiaqi (from left to right), Image@LiangWang

Call for participation –

Event 1 – We would like to hear your interesting stories about experience of using Chinese language in an intercultural context. This can be a Chinese-speaking person helping their international friends or learners of Chinese with the language, in which a misunderstanding or miscommunication took place, or a learner of Chinese encountering various situations when Chinese language was used in a creative but funny way.
Event 2 – Chinese and Irish Traditional Music – The Language of The Sound. We warmly welcome you, especially QUB students, to attend the student-led event at Queen’s on Saturday 28/05. Details and registration information will be published soon.
Event 3 – We are inviting volunteers to contribute to the Duanwu Festival (Friday 03/06) celebration in a variety of ways. It can be a culture workshop, performance, demo, talent show, photo or short video of your cultural celebration etc., as long as they are interactive and engaging.
Regular events – Chinese Culture Forum 2022. While we will do our best to arrange the sessions on topics or issues of potential interest, we are open to suggestions and proposals from you – whether you are a Queen’s staff member, or a student, or a visiting scholar, or a professional from the outside.

You are all welcome to contact us by filling the Reply box (background, proposed topic, ways of delivery, availability, etc.)

Longtaitou Festival

Posted on 4 March 2022 by Liang Wang

What’s Longtaitou Festival?

The traditional Chinese Longtaitou (龙抬头 Lóng tái tóu) Festival, or Dragon-Head-Raising Festival, falls on the second day of the second lunar month every year, and recognises the start of spring and farming. This year it falls on 4th March.

Dragon Dance at the Chinese New Year Celebrations at Queen’s in 2020

In Chinese mythology, 龙 (Chinese dragon or coined as Loong), with its connotations for good luck and supreme power, is also the god managing weather and water, bring rainfalls for crops to grow and harvest. So this Longtaitou Festival is mainly about praying for good weather in spring with good rainfalls, the key time for plowing the fields.

Learning Chinese language and culture at Queen’s

3rd Semester Language Course Registration is open and closes promptly at 17:00 on Thursday 21 April 2022. Classes are expected to be extremely popular and fill up quickly, so early registration is strongly recommended.

To register with a Mandarin Chinese course, please follow the course information page for more information with links to registrations.

Mandarin Chinese Courses

2022 Chinese Language Video Festival launched

Posted on 26 February 2022 by Liang Wang

‘China Chic’: Chinese Language Video Festival launched to celebrate UN Chinese Language Day

The theme this year is “China Chic” – a modern take on traditional Chinese heritage from young people around the world. As China has continued to progress and innovate, unique cultural elements have been adapted to fit the very latest trends, with the younger generation increasingly aware of regional differences.
All non-native Chinese speakers from around the world are invited to submit an original video showcasing the beauty of Chinese traditions and how they are incorporated into the modern world.

Read CGTN for more details.

Happy Lantern Festival

Posted on 15 February 2022 by Liang Wang

Happy Lantern Festival! 元宵节快乐！

With thanks to our students Chen and Yuhang who shared the beautiful lantern photos taken in Belfast, we would like to wish you all a happy and healthy year!

Today is the Lantern Festival, which marks the first full moon of the new lunar year and the end of the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) celebration period. We hope you have enjoyed our Year of the Tiger celebration events so far, and welcome you to continue with our Chinese Culture Forum, with two cultural talks remaining in February (16th and 23rd).

For upcoming events, please follow our Chinese Culture Forum 2022 for updates.

Chinese Sign Language Dance

Posted on 7 February 2022 by Liang Wang

The Chinese New Year is conventionally known as Spring Festival (春节 chūnjié) in China, which welcomes the arrival of spring despite of the cold weather that remains. People are full of hope for a new start in their life when the world comes back to life.

With thanks to our talented graduate Tang LI, we hope that you will be able to enjoy this melody and beautiful Chinese sign language dance.

Song: Early Spring (《春三月》)

Performer: Tang LI, graduate from Queen’s University Management School

For better effect, you may watch it from Youtube.
For audience from mainland China, you may watch this performance by click this link.

The meaning and translation of the Chinese sign language dance:

niǎo’r rào zhǐyuān shēngshēng sù
鸟儿绕纸鸢   声声    诉 The birds dance with the paper kite, cooing and wooing.
sānyuè lái bǎi cǎo kāi
三月来百草开 The grass blooms in March
yíng xiāng mǎn xiù wàn wù sū
盈   香    满袖万物苏   The air is full of fragrance as the earth comes back to life.
chóng míng hé zhe huānxiào xīnshì shū
虫    鸣   和着欢笑   心事舒 The insects sing cheerfully, with no worries in mind.
sānyuè lái nuǎn yáng fù
三月来暖   阳   复   The world has warmed since March
xiāng xié qù tàqīng chù
相    携去踏青   处 as the people venture out, a new green world to find
mò shàng huā kāi mǎn lù xiāng rù tǔ
陌上    花开满路香    入土 Flowers bloom everywhere alongside the paths and the soil was soaked with incense.
sānyuè lái yǒu guī rén
三月来有归人 As people return in March
mǎ tà qiǎn cǎo shēng cuīcù
马踏浅   草声    催促 with horses treading the shallow grass,
chūn yǒu qī guī yǒu rì
春   有期归有日 Spring has its term and people know to expect it.
jīn guī tú
今归途 As people return again
sānyuè lái shēng qíngsù
三月来生    情愫     They plant their sentiment in March
chūn gāng fù
春   刚   复 As Spring arrives again
qíng rù gǔ
情   入骨 The sentiment is so profound that it has been rooted to the people’s bones
jiè lǚ dōng fēng hù sù
借缕东   风   互诉   whispering to one another through the spring breeze
xiāng ài mù
相    爱慕   their love and affection for each other.

Back to CNY2022 Launch Event

New Year greetings and melody

Posted on 1 February 2022 by Liang Wang

虎年大吉！春节快乐！

With thanks to Queen’s students DENG Wei (邓维), and QIAO Zexuan (乔泽轩) for coming together to produce this Celtic/Chinese inspired performance to welcome the arrival of the Spring Festival.

For audience from mainland China, you can access the video via this link.

We would also like to share our President and Vice-Chancellor’s New Year greeting with you all. In his message, Prof Ian Greer points out that Tiger loves adventure and challenge – the two characteristics will take you afar here at Queen’s. It’s not that you have to be always the strongest – life is that using all skills you have and those you’ve learned to take you further.

For audience from mainland China, you can access the video via this link.

We hope you enjoy a happy and healthy year ahead and look forward to welcoming you to our CNY celebrations launch event on Wednesday 02/02 and the culture talks that follow.

Happy Year of The Tiger

Posted on 28 January 2022 by Liang Wang

虎年快乐！Hǔnián kuàilè!

The Language Centre at Queen’s and the BAME&I Staff Network invite staff, students, as well as members of the public, to join in welcoming the Year of The Tiger, which falls on Tuesday 1 February, with a variety of online cultural celebrations that explore the theme of Connectedness and Inclusion.

The launch event is scheduled between 13:00 and 14:15 on Wed 2 February featuring welcomes, cultural performances and a guest talk, followed by a variety of culture talks in the following weeks, as part of the Chinese Culture Forum 2022. All welcome!

The online Art Exhibition, in collaboration with the ArtEast Club, is open for viewing now. You are very welcome to leave your thoughts and votes for the ones you like best from each other the artists.

For the full programme and registration links, visit Chinese Culture Programme 2022.

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