Since the establishment of Confucius Classroom, the teachers and students at Monkseaton High School frequently hold Chinese cultural events. Apart from the celebration of the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, every year they are also most interested in the Mid – autumn Festival – Moon Festival. With the coming of this year’s Mid – autumn Festival, there appeared the atmosphere, indicating ‘Every year looking at the same round, bright moon, but this year people’s love for the Chinese culture becomes much stronger than last year’.

To celebrate this year’s Mid – autumn Festival, the Chinese and art teachers decided to bring an innovative, a more attractive event. In addition to the display of PPT, pictures, decorating with lanterns and coloured streamers, wearing traditional colourful costumes, they encouraged the students to do the research and use their imagination to create their own work. That afternoon, organised and guided by the head of art department, Lynette Chandler, the students started searching online the related information, discussing the knowledge of history, legend, interesting customs and famous poems. Everyone was fully enjoying and exciting with their tasks individually and in groups such as paper cutting, drawing, writing, sewing, coping, sticking, hanging, and like. Very soon, the beautiful work such as Chang E flying to the Moon, Jade Rabbit blending herbs, Wu Gang chopping the osmanthus tree, Li Bai’s poem ‘Reflections on a Quiet Night’, and Zhang Jiuling’s ‘Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away’, etc. are all very nicely presented. The large Faceless Cardboard Cutout is particularly attractive, in which Chang E accompanied by her Rabbit flying down to the earth with moon cakes in her hands. Everyone took photos performing as Chang E, really enjoying the traditional Chinese culture. This demonstrates, with the introduction of Chinese language, China’s long, rich history and culture have become more and more globally popular.