On 27 December, staff and students who took part in Chinese Language courses this semester through the Chinese Language and Culture Centre (CLC) gathered for their end of semester talent show. Students showed off the skills they picked up during their semester learning Chinese.
English Language Centre (ELC) Lecturer, Jacob Algrim, and CLC Instructor, Angela Liu, were the emcees for the event, greeting the packed room in Chinese, and starting the event off with a game. To incorporate the Christmas season, a small Santa doll was handed around in a passing game while music was playing, and whoever had the doll when the music stopped had to do a Chinese tongue twister or answer a question in Chinese.
After the icebreaker game, the first presentation began. Two students from the Learning Chinese & Travelling in China class talked about their experiences travelling in China. ELC Foreign Intern, Brittany Carciofini, began the presentation by sharing her experience travelling to Nanning. She shared a funny story about how she was the first foreigner to stay in her accommodations and had her photo put on the wall, which made her feel like a local celebrity.
The second student to share was Learning Resource Centre (LRC) Foreign Intern, Tia Mannix, who discussed a trip she took to Xinjiang. She showed pictures of the different landscapes she encountered, and talked about how it could go from desert to mountain, with such a vast variety of beauty to take in.
After learning about the two cities, the next performance was given by the Intermediate Chinese II class, who recited a Chinese poem called ‘Facing the Sea with Spring Blossoms’. The presentations were then broken up by a chopstick skill competition, where students raced each other to be able to pick up more peanuts from a bowl in one minute. The quickest student was able to move more than 50 peanuts, which highly impressed the audience.
Several lucky draws for prizes were drawn throughout the event, with third, second and first prizes presented in between performances.
The Travel in Chinese class performed ‘Three and a Half Sentences’, where they showcased new vocabulary they learned this semester, such as how to book hotel rooms, take trains and taxis and change money. This was followed by presentations given by the Intermediate Chinese I class, who discussed their lives in China. Two students discussed trips they took to Guangzhou, one detailed her time at UIC and the last student talked about her family and how she started learning Chinese when she was younger. The presentations were given almost entirely in Chinese, showing off the students’ impressive Chinese speaking abilities.
Presentations were again broken up by another game, where students played Pictionary with common Chinese words, and their partners had to guess what they were drawing. After this game, the Chinese Characters class taught the audience some short stories based on Chinese idioms, and had the audience practice the stroke order for writing the characters in the stories.
The next performance was a poem presented by the Visual-Audio-Oral Chinese class, titled ‘You Come to See Me or Not’. The audience shared in laughter as the performers serenaded a teddy bear with their song.
Afterwards, the Pinyin class did a short skit where they showcased how simple words in Chinese can have many different meanings, by using the word “a” to express agreement, surprise and more. The final draw was made after their performance, with the lucky student winning a beautiful panda screen.
The Intern class then performed the Chinese version of ‘I’ll Make a Man out of You’ from Mulan. Students sang along and performed, using large wooden sticks to pretend to be soldiers preparing for battle.
The talent show finished with the Elementary Chinese I class singing ‘Miss You So Much’, which was a very fitting end to the event, as some of the exchange students will be leaving this semester. During the song, Chinese knots were handed out to the audience as mementos by CLC Lecturer, Candy Cai, and Division of Science and Technology (DST) Foreign Intern, Jenna Otto. The event was a great success, with students being able to show off their Chinese, and gain confidence in performing and speaking the language.
Reporter/Photographer: Samantha Burns
Editor: Deen He
(from MPRO)
