Ukrainian school celebrates Lunar New Year

KYIV－"Xin nian kuai le. Wan shi ru yi"－students, teachers and staff at Kyiv Gymnasium of Oriental Languages No 1 are greeting each other in Chinese, saying "Happy New Year and good luck in everything" to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

"Spring Festival is a family holiday, and our gymnasium is a united family. Therefore, Spring Festival turns into a family celebration," says Tatyana Pavlenok, a teacher at the school.

Founded in 1936, the school has been offering Chinese-language classes for Ukrainian and foreign students since 1956. Currently, more than 600 students are studying Chinese in the school.

Spring Festival is celebrated here each year, and this time, the holiday atmosphere can be found everywhere inside the school.

Walls of the hall and the classrooms are embellished with festive decorations, including traditional red paper lanterns, paper cutouts, garlands, and even drawings depicting a tiger, this year's symbolic animal.

"We always involve children in various creative activities. We hold workshops for them on making lanterns. We hold calligraphy contests, drawing contests, Chinese-language contests and make this holiday interesting for them," Pavlenok says.

Pavlenok, who graduated from the education institute in 1980 and then learned Chinese in Russia, has been working at the school for over 30 years.

In 1993, Pavlenok visited Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, as part of a yearlong teacher exchange program, during which she was impressed by the way Chinese families celebrated Lunar New Year.

"People eat dumplings and present red envelopes with money and gifts," the teacher explains.

"At the school, children see only part of the celebrations. Without the Chinese environment, immersion in the culture, it is difficult to convey the atmosphere of the holiday, but we try our best," Pavlenok says.

According to her, Chinese teachers from the Confucius Institute, who also work in the school, introduce traditional Spring Festival celebrations to Ukrainian youngsters.

Meanwhile, Chinese teachers were also invited to celebrate Lunar New Year together to ease their homesickness.

As the popularity of Chinese language and culture in Ukraine is rising, she adds, families of the school students are joining in with the Spring Festival celebrations.

With the development of China, the parents are more willing to support their children to learn Chinese, Pavlenok says.

During the celebration, the students of the school also recorded a video message to Chinese people and performed the Lunar New Year song Gongxi-gongxi, and chanted "We love Chinese culture dearly! Happy New Year!"

This year's Lunar New Year is special as it coincides with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

As a part of the celebrations, students at the school prepared and demonstrated Olympic-themed presentations and participated in quizzes about Olympic venues in China.

"Spring Festival and the celebration of the beginning of the Winter Olympics in China are symbolic. It creates a bridge of friendship," Pavlenok says, wishing Chinese people good health and Olympic athletes good luck.

She voices a hope that the Beijing Winter Olympics will bring peace to the whole world.

The festivities in the school lasted until Lantern Festival, which fell on the 15th day of the first lunar month, or Tuesday this year.

Xinhua