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Welcoming the Year of the Rabbit together with BCI

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Culture
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The Business Confucius Institute (BCI) at the University of Leeds held a celebratory event to welcome the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit with a variety of cultural activities, such as engaging workshops, educational talks and performances led by our knowledgeable and talented staff on 18 January 2023.

On Wednesday, the Business Confucius Institute organised and held an event to celebrate the coming of the Chinese New Year by welcoming friends and partners of the institute to take part in cultural activities prepared by our staff. Around 60 of us gathered in the Leeds University Business School - both those interested in learning more about Chinese culture and Chinese people alike - to learn something new about the Lunar New Year and share personal experiences with this celebration.

The event started off with our Chinese instructor Liang Yuanyuan’s introductory talk, where she explained in depth about Spring Festival in China and shared numerous customs and traditions typically practiced during Chinese New Year. The talk was followed by cultural workshops in Chinese calligraphy (书法) and Chinese paper-cutting (剪纸). Our guests had the opportunity to freely choose the activity they wished to participate in, as both workshops were set up at the same time, supervised by our teachers. Those who chose to participate in Chinese calligraphy tried their hand at writing different Chinese characters (汉字), like ‘’spring’’ (春), ‘’good fortune’’ (福), ‘’rabbit’’ (兔) and others. However, those who favoured Chinese paper-cutting had a go at cutting their own Spring Festival themed window decorations and 3D ornaments to take home as small mementos of our event. 

Towards the end of our celebration, the guests were treated to some exciting traditional performances by our skilled staff - our teacher Li Yueju showed us an impressive Tai Chi Sword demonstration, while Chinese Director Zhang Xiaofeng presented us with a Chinese folk dance performance, where everyone was welcome to join in and give it a go themselves. The event was accompanied with a warm and friendly atmosphere where visitors could enjoy a wide selection of Chinese snacks and tea, learn more about Chinese culture and Spring Festival festivities, as well as chat and share personal cultural insights. 

We were happy to see such a big turnout for our event and had a great time celebrating the Year of the Rabbit together with our friends. As always, we look forward to hosting similar events in the future and welcoming all of you at the BCI! 

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