On June 24th, the Confucius Institute at University of Mauritius and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University jointly celebrated the ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ online. This event marked another cooperation between the two universities.
Under the co-planning of the Confucius Institute at University of Mauritius and the School of Foreign Languages of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, a volunteer group, named as “世界同心shìjiè tóngxīn, 语你同行”, yǔ nǐ tóngxíng (we are together in a concentric world), organized a series of activities with foreign students at ZSTU. They had experienced a number of traditional activities during the Dragon Boat Festival in China, such as making of sachets, zongzi (Chinese sticky rice dumpling), five-color thread, and hanging the wormwood. The volunteers captured the experience in a video, with Chinese and English subtitles, and a copy of which was shared with Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius.
The teachers at CI-UoM used the video, along with other researched materials and teaching support, to introduce the customs of Chinese Dragon Boat Festival to local students. This enhanced the students’ understanding of traditional Chinese culture and helped to raise more interest in learning Chinese language and culture. In the class, the students could sense a strong Dragon Boat Festival atmosphere despite being online. And they admired the international students at ZSTU, saying that they wish they could participate in such practical activities, given the opportunity.
Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University continue to collaborate in Chinese language teaching and promote cultural exchanges. The two parties have endeavored to successively elaborate and launch a series of videos, focusing on "Chinese Heart, Chinese Love and Chinese Taste", and including Chinese medicine, opera, cuisine, painting, Kungfu, architecture and Chinese costumes. The cooperation between Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and the Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius has built a communication platform, which serves to strengthen the two-way exchange of human, and information resources. This collaboration will enhance the interaction between students at CI-UoM and their counterparts in China.
International students at ZSTU sharing their experience of ‘Dragon Boat Festival’, through a video, to CI-UoM students
Teachers at CI-UoM introducing, through online classes, the customs of Dragon Boat Festival to CI-UoM students