Chinese New Year – The Year of the Ox

Chinese New Year was never going to be the same as any other year! But the Ox is strong and powerful and was not going to let anything spoil its celebrations.

As has been the way for nearly a year now, we took to Zoom to create as good a celebration as any other year.

The evening was a celebration of Chinese culture. A group of us hosted different activities to give our evening fun, enjoyment and education. Included among that was even time for socialising via the breakout rooms. Here is a flavour of what happened on the evening.

After a short video of a lion dance to open proceedings we took a virtual trip to China. Using photographs from our 2016 trip we toured Chengdu, Wudang, Xian and Beijing. This was followed by a view of China back in 1993 when Jen (Wednesday 10am Zoom) shared some of her experiences. After that it was time to get up on our feet and try out “Visualisation in Tai Chi” with Jane from A Higher Porpoise Tai Chi. Following that was a Tea Meditation lead by myself using Oolong Tea. The breakout rooms gave everyone a chance to socialise with new and old friends sharing their fortune cookie fortunes. When we returned Barbara lead a wonderful Mandarin lesson so that we could familiarise ourselves with common words and phrases. The counting was especially good fun. Next on the programme was Chinese Iron Balls and Bill (Wednesday 11am Zoom) explained beautifully the history and purpose of these ancient decorated balls.

It was now time to see whether anyone had been listening to the evening’s proceedings as Chris (Tuesday/Wednesday Zoom) hosted a Chinese quiz that she had compiled. Chris also very kindly donated a prize. The maximum number of points that could be achieved was twenty and with a score of fifteen, Anna who attends several Zoom sessions, won the competition.

The evening ended with a musical rendition of Auld Lang Sang played on the Hulusi (A traditional ethnic Chinese musical instrument) played by yours truly. It was a lovely way to round off a very successful evening and just so you don’t think that I am just saying that here are some of the many comments I received that weekend:

I forget who sang the song but the lyrics went “What a swell party it was”.
Thank you so much for organising such a unique event last night.
Thank you for tonight, it was absolutely lovely, I really enjoyed it.
I especially loved the tea ceremony and look forward to experiencing that again.
Just wanted to say that was a great nights entertainment.

Photos from the evening can be found here
Donations were also taken for the RNLI in memory of Geoff Pike (Fan class). If you wish to make a donation click here