Activities
Grammar School Cultural Enrichment
As Japanese parents, it is important for us to educate our children to be more appreciative of other cultures, especially that of our Chinese neighbors. The future generations of Japan will help sustain friendly Japan-Sino relationships for socio-economic reasons that will affect both countries' continued growth and prosperity. The programs mentioned below are a sample of classroom activities that might be performed in Japanese schools.
Through this program, Chinese rituals will be incorporated as a new part of our social studies sessions in our grammar schools. The children will take the lead and organize the activities to show what they've learned about Chinese culture and society. Final projects will include skits, ceremonies, and artwork to be showcased during school spirit days as well. The older students will help recreate a popular Chinese celebration or tradition such as the Chinese New Year's Day parade.
We will use the classroom as our homebase to demonstrate Chinese New Year's festival activities. In this Chinese celebration, the emphasis is on strengthening family ties, resolving issues from the past year, and starting afresh in the new year. The classroom will be cleaned and repaired by the class as a group to "sweep away bad luck". Our school and classrooms will be decorated (especially in red and gold) to bring in happiness, good luck, and good health to all. The older students will organize a lantern festival for a grand finale. Another rich Chinese tradition that the students will study is the Moon Cake Festival.
Tea ceremonies are also an important custom in both Japanese and Chinese society. One important tradition practiced in China is that Chinese tea ceremony is held just after a marriage is made official but before the wedding banquet. In our classrooms we will teach the children to recognize, respect, and learn from customs such as this one.
As a comparison of Chinese and Japanese history, we will study Chinese mythogical origins and Chinese fables. A follow-up will include learning about the Chinese calendar system and having the students identify important dates such as birthdays using it. For more on Chinese mythology try this website.
Another hands-on learning activity is a pen pal program for the grade school students. Each classroom will take on a Chinese classroom's students as international pen pals. We hope to stress the importance of friendly relations and neighborly duty to our children. We feel the children will be able to establish long-distance friendships while exchanging cultural information with each other. The children can also become part of a new family at the same time and are encouraged to share their pen pal letters with the rest of the group. In some cases the students will work in small groups to write to the Chinese children.
We have also established a program to encourage travel and study abroad for our university students. This is a joint effort with a Japanese-government funded program that is already in the works. The program offers travel discounts, host families, and stresses group trips to study and explore in China. Japanese program mentors will help the students set up their trip logistics and accommodations.
These links below provide more information about international students studying in China. http://www.cscse.edu.cn/laihua/index.html http://www.google.com/search?q=china+primary+schools&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1
Please learn more about some of our other activities in Japan established to encourage friendly, long-term Sino-Japan relationships.