The online Spring Festival cultural experience activities of Confucius Classroom at Rezekne Academy of Technologies ended successfully

“The golden rat resigns from the old year and the golden bull welcomes the New Year.” To celebrate the arrival of the Chinese New Year, the Confucius Classroom at  Academy of Technologies carried out a variety of online cultural experience activities during the Spring Festival. While presenting traditional Chinese culture, it also delivered beautiful New Year blessings. The event was conducted on the Tencent video conference platform in the form of a cultural classroom.

In the class, the Chinese Language teacher Xie Liting introduced the origin of the Spring Festival to the students through the Spring Festival cultural promotion video, as well as the customs of “posting antithetical couplets,” “giving red envelopes”, and “having New Year’s Eve dinner”, so that students could appreciate the long history and splendid culture behind the Spring Festival. The next series of cultural experience activities made the students feel the strong New Year atmosphere. Under the leadership of Teacher Xie Liting, the students wrote the characters “Fu” and “Spring” which imply good wishes and hope; together they made lanterns that symbolized celebration and reunion; and they sang happy New Year songs together.How lively!

The most enthusiastic activity in the classroom is the “grabbing red envelopes” . Teacher Xie Liting prepared red envelopes for the Spring Festival before the class, and let the students decide the order of drawing red envelopes by “rock, paper, scissors” and guess the amount of red envelopes, or start the game by guessing the words to win red envelopes. In a group of two, the person who guesses the right wins the red envelope, and the person who does not guess the right one cannot get the red envelope, and even faces the risk of losing all the red envelopes they have got to their opponent. The exciting game rules and generous prizes greatly aroused the interest of the students, and everyone actively participated in the “Red Envelope Battle”. In the end, the game ended in the laughter of the students. Everyone said that this game is very cool and very interesting. It not only reminds everyone of Chinese New Year related words such as “red envelopes, lanterns, couplets”, but also feels the strong Spring Festival atmosphere from it.

In addition, Teacher Xie Liting also introduced the traditional Chinese snack-Bingtang Hulu (rock sugar gourds on a stick) to the students. In order to give the students a better experience,the teacher shot a video, shared with everyone the method of making rock sugar gourds, and showed the rock sugar gourds she made, which made everyone feel fresh and pleasant. Finally, Teacher Xie Liting assigned a special homework to the students-let the students try to make rock sugar gourds themselves. After the course, some students personally experienced making rock sugar gourds at home. Among them, Katina from the intermediate class showed the rock sugar gourds she and her family completed together, and said, “The rock sugar gourds are crisp and delicious, and they are quickly eaten. She and her family like them very much and will try to make Chinese gourmet more”.

After the event, the students of the Confucius Classroom recorded a Chinese New Year blessing video, wishing everyone “Happy Chinese New Year and Good Luck in the Year of the Ox”. In addition, at the first online Spring Festival Gala from the Confucius Institute at the University of Latvia, students from the advanced class sang an adapted version of the song “Happy New Year”, and Victoria also brought a violin performance of the Chinese folk song “Jasmine” to celebrate the Spring Festival of the Ox.

“金鼠辞旧岁，金牛迎新春”。为庆祝中国农历新年的到来，雷泽克内大学孔子课堂在春节期间开展了丰富多彩的线上文化体验活动，在呈现中国传统文化的同时，也传递了美好的新春祝福。此次活动以文化课堂的形式在腾讯视频会议平台进行。

在课堂上，汉语教师谢丽婷通过春节文化宣传片给学生们介绍了春节的起源、以及“贴对联”、“发红包”、“吃年夜饭”等习俗，让学生体味到春节背后所蕴含的悠久历史和灿烂文化。接下来的一系列文化体验活动则让同学们感受到了浓浓的“年味”。在谢丽婷老师的带领下，同学们一起书写了寓意着美好祝愿和希望的“福”字、“春”字；一起制作了象征着喜庆、团圆的灯笼；并且一起演唱了欢乐的新年歌曲，好不热闹！

而课堂上气氛最热烈的要数“抢红包”活动了。谢丽婷老师在课前准备了春节红包，让同学们通过“石头剪刀布”的方式决定抽红包的顺序，并猜测红包金额，或通过猜词赢红包的形式展开游戏。两人一组，猜对者赢得红包，未猜对者不得红包，甚至还面临把自己已得的红包全部输给对手的风险。这刺激的游戏规则和丰厚的奖品极大地激起了同学们的兴趣，大家都积极地投入到“抢红包大战”中。最终游戏在同学们的欢声笑语中结束了。大家表示这个游戏非常酷、非常有意思，不仅让大家记住了“红包、灯笼、对联”等与春节相关的词语，而且也从中感受到了浓浓的春节气氛。

此外，谢丽婷老师还向同学们介绍了中国传统的小吃——冰糖葫芦。为了带给同学们更好的体验，谢丽婷老师拍摄了视频，与大家分享了制作冰糖葫芦的方法，并展示了自己做的冰糖葫芦，这让大家觉得既新鲜又惊喜。最后，谢丽婷老师给同学们布置了一份特别的作业——让同学们自己尝试做冰糖葫芦。课程结束后，一些同学在家亲自体验了做冰糖葫芦。其中，来自中级班的卡缇娜展示了她和家人一起完成的冰糖葫芦，并表示“冰糖葫芦又脆又好吃，很快就被吃完了，她和家人都非常喜欢，以后还会多尝试制作中国美食”。

活动结束后，孔子课堂的学生录制了春节祝福视频，祝福大家“新春快乐，牛年大吉”。此外，在拉脱维亚大学孔子学院首届网络春晚的舞台上，高级班的学生合唱了改编版歌曲《新年好》，大维多利亚还带来了中国民歌《茉莉花》小提琴演奏，以精彩的才艺表演共同庆祝牛年春节。