One Character, one world; one stroke, one universe. In this wonderful season, Puxi Campus G4-5 students came together for a spectacular celebration — the Chinese Character Week. Through a series of diverse and engaging activities, the students, amidst laughter and joy, deeply appreciated the unique charm of Chinese Characters and were further inspired to explore and love traditional Chinese culture.

The Grade 4 students actively participated in the ‘Easily Confused Characters' card-making activity. They delved into commonly miswritten characters such as ‘yuan’, ‘sou’, ‘zhou’, ‘fan’, and ‘wei’. To effectively remember the correct of writing these characters. Students brainstormed various memory strategies, by connected the characters to visual images, making the memorization process more vivid and fun; and they also drew inspiration from the evolution of Chinese Characters, tracing their historical development. This activity not only helped them master the correct writing of commonly confused characters but, more importantly, allowed them to deeply experience the profound and rich culture of Chinese Characters.

At the same time, the students watched the documentary Characters from the Moment We Meet. This documentary, with its concise, lively, and engaging animated format, presented the past and present of each Chinese Character. The students traced the origins of Chinese Characters, learned about their developmental history, and gained a deep understanding of the philosophical and aesthetic concepts embedded in Chinese Characters. It was as if they had traveled through time, conversing with ancient people and experiencing the evolution and transmission of Chinese Characters across the ages.

The ‘Magical Characters' game, on the other hand, cleverly combined learning with entertainment. In this activity, the students combined radicals and components to form Characters, which tested their grasp of Character structure and components, while also helping them gain a deeper understanding of how Chinese Characters are constructed, and appreciating the creativity and intricacies within. Learning through play, practicing, and consolidating knowledge made the process of learning to read and write more lively and significantly.

The Grade 5 Chinese teachers led the students in mastering the ‘Secret Techniques of Character.' The beauty of Chinese pronunciation is deeply melodious. The tonal variations — rising, falling, level, and departing — resemble a graceful and dynamic melody; the rhymes at the ends of sentences mirror the energetic beats of drums; the alternation of long and short sentences, along with parallel structures, creates a harmonious cultural symphony that has lasted for millennia. These rising and falling tones reflect the beauty of Chinese rhythm, as they appreciate the poetry and charm of Chinese language from ancient to modern times.

The beauty of pronunciation lies not only in its rhythm but also in its playfulness. Words with the same or similar sounds can be combined into unique tongue twisters, and the inclusion of polyphonic and polysemous characters adds to the humor and fun of the learning process. By practicing tongue twisters, the students improved their pronunciation accuracy and reading fluency, while also enhancing their oral expression skills.

Additionally, Grade 5 students also experienced the unique charm of Chinese calligraphy through brush writing activities. Chinese calligraphy is known as a silent poem, and these activities allowed the students to appreciate the beauty and wonder of Chinese Characters. Activities such as this one further sparked the students passion for learning Chinese Characters and inheriting cultural traditions.

To further explore the mysteries of Chinese Characters, the fifth-grade students independently chose their favorite Characters to investigate their stories and presented their findings through posters. Some students shared the evolution of their surnames, such as ‘Li' and 'Sun'; others introduced the transformation of the Character ‘city’, tracing its development from Oracle bone script, bronze script, to seal script, clerical script, and regular script — each stage reflecting the wisdom and efforts of the ancient people. Still, other students focused on fascinating and curious anecdotes related to Chinese Characters, offering lively and interesting narratives and presentations. These colorful and creatively designed posters showcased the students' love and respect for Chinese Character culture and promoted enthusiasm for exploring.

The Chinese Character competition was the highlight of the entire Chinese Character Week. Each class in the fourth and fifth grade selected talented students in the pre-contest and regrouped into a 4-person team to participate in the competition. There were a wide variety of games, including guessing the idioms with only parts of the characters presented, guessing the words by meanings, finding the wrongly written characters, listening to the music then answering questions, and so on. Every students showed an interest and level of enthusiasm for these games, including the 32 students on the stage.

The competition consisted of three rounds, thoroughly and deeply testing the contestants on various aspects, including Character structure, word combination, pronunciation, and cultural history.

In the first round, the students faced two challenges: guessing the idioms with only parts of the characters presented, guessing the words by meanings. This round tested the students' familiarity with Character structures and understanding of word meanings and honoured their language expression and teamwork skills. The contestants showed quick thinking, some frowning as they pondered, while others blurted out answers with flashes of inspiration, earning loud applause from the audience.

The second round focused on the flexible use and creativity of Chinese Characters. The competition also emphasized the practical use of Chinese Characters in everyday life, such as finding typos in advertisements, creating proverbs with food-related words, solving surname riddles, and amusing exercises in punctuation that brought laughter to the whole audience. In these challenging activities, the contestants demonstrated  a solid grasp of Chinese Characters and their agile thinking, offering accurate and creative answers based on their in-depth understanding of Character meanings and shapes.

In the final round, the competition reached its peak. The students watched a video on Oracle bone script and were required to accurately write the modern Chinese Characters that appeared in the video. This round tested their deep understanding of the evolution of Chinese Characters and their broad knowledge of their historical development, allowing them to truly appreciate the vastness and richness of Chinese Character culture. After three rounds of fierce competition, Team One’s  Leonard from class 4-3, Winston from class 4-5, Lawrence from class 5-8, and Sean from class 5-7, stood out with their outstanding performance and won the championship of the 2024 Chinese Character competition!

Amidst the loud applause, Ms. Liu, Vice Principal of SHSID Middle and Primary School, awarded the championship team and encouraged them to continue studying Chinese Characters and inheriting Chinese culture. Mr. Ni, Director of MPTC, also presented medals to other outstanding participants, encouraging them to continue progressing in their study of Chinese Characters and to keep exploring the endless charm of the Characters.

With the fragrance of ink spreading across millennia and the rhythmic echoes of Chinese Character spirits, the values and traditions of ancient and modern China are continuously passed down through every stroke of the Characters. The Chinese Character Week event deepened the students' understanding of Chinese Characters and laid a solid cultural foundation for them. These valuable experiences will inspire them to continue exploring the mysteries of Chinese Character culture in the future and to inherit and promote the fine traditions of Chinese culture.

Written by Cathy Cao

Pictures/Video by Minxuan Cao

Reviewed by Cong Luo, Emma Hackett