2024-09-17
On the afternoon of September 22nd 2022, Confucius Institute at Kenyatta University celebrated the mid-autumn festival. This is the second largest Chinese festival after the Spring Festival or what the world knows as the Chinese New Year festival. According to the Chinese lunar calendar, it falls on the 15th day of the eighth month and is celebrated all over Mainland China as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong, with differing styles of celebrations depending on location. These festivities fall around harvest season when families gather for dinners, to share the joys of harvesting rice and many fruits. They also make and eat moon cakes.
This year’s celebration was graced by staff and students from Eagle Crest academy, KUCI board members, Kenyatta University lecturers, administrative staff and students of KUCI. The Multifunctional hall of the LCC building was filled with music, pomp, colour, cheers and celebrations as guests were treated to a taste of Chinese moon cakes, video presentations on the mid-autumn festival and Chinese traditional dance and music.
Speaking at the start of the function, KUCI Director Dr. Hellen Guantai said, she was happy to see a large student turn out as the event was important to the learning of Chinese culture. She said the incorporation of cultural knowledge in teaching Chinese Mandarin has proved helpful in producing all round Chinese language speakers at the Institute. She asked everyone to share good cheer and generosity as demonstrated by the Chinese people during mid-autumn celebrations.
In China when coming together with your family it is common to gift items to show appreciation. The most commonly gifted items during the Mid-Autumn Festival period are: moon cakes and tea (to accompany those delicious moon cakes). For KUCI, participants were treated to a fun lottery game where 20 people won random gifts, best of which was a Bluetooth wireless speaker.
The Director Eagle Crest Academy Mrs. Elizabeth Mayani thanked Kenyatta University administration for allowing her young Chinese leaners to visit and participate in the celebrations. She said her school had identified Chinese as a foreign language of necessity. She said her learners love the language and have been making great progress on it. The grade 4 & 5 learners demonstrated excellent mastery of the language by answering most of the questions during the Q & A section and bagged all prizes, outshining university students.
The festivities came to an end at 4:00 PM as guest’s sampled Chinese tea and ate moon cakes.
From left: Dr. Mirriam Osore KUCI board member, Mrs. Elizabeth Maiyani Director EagleCrest Academy, Dr. Elizabeth Andango KUCI board member, looking on from behind Dr. Mugure lecturer Kenyatta University, sampling moon cakes