To share the joys of the Chinese New Year together with local Kenyan people, Confucius Institute at Moi University (CIMU) held the Chinese New Year Gala at the main campus of Moi University at local time Feb. 2nd and at Town Campus at Feb. 5th .
The Chinese New Year is one of the most important traditional Chinese festivals. After planning and preparing for over a month, teachers at CIMU presented a wonderful gala to introduce the history and customs of the Chinese New Year to local people and to share the joys of this festival with them. The gala consisted of three parts, with the first one introducing the customs, the second providing cultural experiences of paper-cutting and calligraphy, and the third playing sports and games.
The gala began with teacher ZHOU Lei’s vivid lectures of stories about the Chinese New Year, including its origin, its tradition and its customs. Participants’ impression on the festival is enhanced by the knowledge competition following the lectures. By doing window paper-cutting, learning how to write the Chinese character Fu (happiness), participants sensed the joyful atmosphere of this festival and shared with each other their works and their wishes for a new year. They actively participated in the gala physically in activities and games in the third part and helped the gala reached its peak with their smiling faces, cheerful laughter.
CIMU is not only the platform to introduce Chinese language and culture into Kenya, but also the African base for education fair for Donghua University. During the gala, CIMU teachers introduced to the students the characteristics disciplines and scholarship programs of Donghua University, in which they showed their keen interest.
CIMU is one of the new Confucius Institutes in Kenya and shoulders the responsibility of being another window for people in Western and Central Kenya to learn about China. The year 2015 is one of entering new stage for both Sino-African and Sino-Kenyan relationship and, in a new year, CIMU is ready to contribute its share to promoting the friendship between the two continents and two countries.
（供稿 莫伊孔院•张伊）
(By ZHANG Yi from CIMU)