On Friday, the 9th of September, the University of Canterbury held its annual spring open day. The event was received well, with over 4000 students and some of their parents attending. The Confucius Institute was also set up for the day.
Conversations with people regarding Chinese
Setting up around other multicultural stalls helped us gain more attraction and a larger audience. Throughout the day, many students came up and had conversations with us. Conversations ranged from an interest in learning Chinese language, including HSK courses and Chinese courses offered at UC, and Chinese activities like tea house and calligraphy workshops. We also had the table tennis table in use for most of the day with many people playing on it.
It was also great to have our intern Izaac dressed up as a panda named Yaya for much of the day. This drew people to our store, which opened more opportunities for conversations and promotion of Chinese language and culture. Zhengnan also performed some Tai Chi throughout the day, which was a stunning performance for everyone.
Interested students with Panda Mascot
We were all so pleased with how the open day went this year and hope to have the same success in following open days. We hope to be able to see the interest in Chinese grow in New Zealand and see more people interested in taking steps to learn Chinese language, culture, and activities.
Zhengnan Shen
Izaac Wilson
