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HIHS Celebrates Chinese New Year

HIHS Celebrates Chinese New Year

By Charmaine Low on 3 February, 2020

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Chinese New Year was just around the corner. It was that time of the year where we buy new clothes and visit our relatives, receiving wonderfully designed red packets containing money from our relatives as we shower them with well wishes while many different delicious CNY treats are waiting to be devoured. Holy Innocents’ High School comes back with another CNY celebration specially hosted by student volunteers and the Chinese department.

This Year’s celebration was enjoyable yet different compared to previous years and it left many students with a good start for their Chinese New Year Eve. The Chinese New Year celebration included many different events that consisted of a Face Changing performance, Wu Shu and Chinese Orchestra performance that were specially performed by their respective CCAs, alongside an interactive game with the emcees and Hamper Making.

Joy Chia, a student of Holy Innocents’ High School from Class 2 Respect gave her thoughts about the celebration. “My favourite CNY activity was the concert!”, she said with a smile plastered across her face. “I got to see many interesting performances like the “Face Changing” performance and the Chinese Orchestra. Overall, I liked the concert as it was fun and entertaining.”

The ancient Chinese dramatic art “Bian Lian”, which means changing face in English, is
definitely one of the students’ most enjoyed performances. Performers use the “face changing technique” on stage and transforms it into a special art with stunning skills. Wearing a brightly coloured costume, they will wave their arms around and twist their heads, pulling off hard poses and dancing around the stage to the dramatic music. Every time the performer’s mask changed again and again, it catches everyone’s attention, leaving them on the edge of their seats. This performance proved to be a favourite judging by the crowd’s excited and shocked reactions.

Another performance that the crowd enjoyed was by the Wu Shu and Chinese Orchestra CCAs. The performers consisted of students from the Wu Shu and Chinese Orchestra CCA. The Wu Shu CCA left a beaming impression on the crowd as they performed flawlessly with light sabres and fake aluminium swords that were meant to imitate real swords. Wu Shu, or Chinese Kung Fu, is a hard, soft and complete martial art, as well as a full contact sport. With dramatic music played in the background, the Wu Shu CCA gave their all in trying to please the crowd.

The Chinese Orchestra gave a splendid performance as they effortlessly played their respective instruments. The orchestra is divided into different sections – wind, plucked strings, bow strings and percussion. They played two songs – “Roly Poly” by T-ARA and “Xin Nian Ge Da Jia He”. A performer, Chloe Chong gave her opinion of the performance. “We took about 5 days of preparation for the performance with 3 hours of practise each day.”, she said. “I enjoyed being part of the performance as I got to perform for the elderly and the school. On top of that, I also got to perform with my seniors that are graduating this year.”

Adding on, the elderly of Lion Befrienders, a Voluntary Welfare Organisation were invited to our school to watch the CNY performance. These elderly are people who unfortunately do not have people to celebrate their Chinese New Year with, thus the school kindly invited them over. On top of that, students from each class came together and made a hamper to give one to each elderly. The hamper consisted of many food items like packet milo, instant noodles and biscuits.

Mrs Wong Chui Dip, a teacher from the Chinese department quips, “I hope students can learn about the traditional Chinese culture from the New Year celebration and learn to appreciate and cherish these cultures.”