On 9th Feb., UWC Changshu China’s 2018 Chinese Cultural Evening (CCE) wound up with a resounding success. Honoured guests from Changshu Government and from all circles, alumni from different UWCs enjoyed the fabulous performances together with fellow students, faculties and staff of UWC Changshu China to welcome the Chinese New Year. 

“While watching the Chinese Cultural Evening (CCE)  at UWC Changshu China, I felt as if the thunderous applause and cheers in the theatre could almost blow the roof off! It was such a fascinating show!”

“CCE of UWC Changshu China was indeed more interesting than the Spring Festival Gala!”

Those are encouraging comments from our guests invited to watch the CCE.  For parents, they couldn’t wait to share their excitment  while viewing CCE via live stream. They not only enjoyed the show, but also felt grateful to UWC for providing their kids with such a great opportunity to challenge themselves and develop their potentials. 

“We are so appreciative of the freedom given to the kids to grow through exploration and taking actions themselves.” 

“We can hardly believe our eyes and ears that such an amazing cultural evening was organized by secondary school students. They are so passionate, energetic, talented, confident and graceful.”

“It's a great show of Chinese culture.  It's so well organised in every aspect, professional and artistic.”

On 9th Feb., UWC Changshu China’s 2018 Chinese Cultural Evening (CCE) wound up with a resounding success. Honoured guests from Changshu Government and from all circles, alumni from different UWCs enjoyed the fabulous performances together with fellow stud 

CCE 2018 has inherited the good traditions of those of the previous two years and impressed the audience with its well-organised, professionally designed and high quality performances.  Everyone watching the show whether at the theatre or via live stream was immersed in the unique charm of Chinese culture and was deeply touched by the hard work done by the students in order to present the beauty and wonder of the Chinese culture.

~Award Presentation~

At the beginning of the evening, Principal Robert Clarence and incoming Principal, Pelham Roberts, greeted the audience with “Happy new year” in Chinese to light up the scene.  Pelham expressed his excitment to join the UWC Changshu community in the near future. Mark Wang, founder and Chairman of the board  and the Principal Robert took this opportunity to present awards to students who won honour for the School in the past year and faculty and staff who made great contribution to the community. The fact that not only faculties and admininstrative staff were awarded, but also dedicated driver, reflecting the UWC value of showing respect to everyone within the UWC familty.

~Wonderful Performances~

Chinese and foreign students hosting the cultural show together

CCE is always known for its high quality. This time, a rich variety of performances provided the audience with an evening with both strong flavour of Chinese culture and celebration of diversity. Over half of the performances involved international students and teachers.  It is a good opportunity for foreign students to present what they have achieved through learning of Chinese language and culture.

Lion dance

Lion dance

Lion dance:As a classic performance of UWC Changshu China, the lion dance  as always expressed their vigor and team spirit. Along with the drum beats, five “lions” succeeded in performing many stunning movements and showing the innocence and solemnity of the lions at the same time, while wishing the best luck for the New Year. 

Face-changing 

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Face-changing:Ruike Li, a student from Chengdu, dressed in fabulous suit and wearing full-face makeup, performed China’s ancient art of face-changing. Everyone at the theatre was stunned by this amazing art and gave loud applause to show their strong interest in the performance. 

Foreign students singing a  Chinese pop song 

Dance-The Beauties 

Dance-The Beauties: As can be told from the name of the performance, the beautiful girls used their silk fans to create a flow of beautiful images. Accompanied by melodious music, the dance was a fluid display of tenderness and strength. 

Treasury of Beijing Opera

Treasury of Beijing Opera: The moment a group of Beijing Opera lovers including a student from Europe, got on the stage, viewers were impressed by their glamorous costumes and masks, the clear and dulcet singing and their sophisticated movements. Beijing Opera, a quintessence of the traditional Chinese culture, no doubt became one of the most awesome performances during the evening.  

Calligraphy Group presenting their work on the spot

Fashion show— transformation 

Fashion show— transformation:  This concise fashion show led the audience to transcend from Han Dynasty to modern China and  to have a feel not only of the transformation of Chinese dressing style but also the thousand-year history of China. The most impressive part was that models featured in this fashion show included teachers and students from many foreign countries! The seamless harmony between foreign faces and Chinese ancient costume reflected the mutual respect among different cultures and celebration of diversity -- an embodiment of the UWC values.

Dragon dance 

Dragon dance:  The team members of dragon dance Zhi Xing brought life to the dragon through their complex movements and coherent teamwork. The dragon flying all over the stage represented the lively and dynamic spirit of Chinese people. Members of the team could not become masters from scratch without their tireless efforts from countless days and nights of practices — the barefooted girl with dragon ball even kept rehearsing when her feet were badly hurt! No wonder, she became the spot of attention during the Dance.

Christoph Genz, our music teacher from Germany said “CCE truly was a memorable show – and I am sure that everyone, participants and audience, will remember this evening for a long time. The song we sang is about the joy of coming together and the last line says: we sign the same song out of shared joy. It was exactly that joy we all felt throughout this evening. May we sing many more songs with exactly that joy.”

~Behind the Scene Heroes ~

Such a wonderful Cultural Evening could not have succeeded without the efforts made by the CCE Committee and all those involved. Early last October, preparation for CCE took off. During such long preparation time, students demonstrated great passion and devotion with the goal to present a best cultural evening as they could. What was driving them to do so?

 Irvy Yu, who is in charge of creative design for the CCE said:“The gratification of a designer comes from the appreciation of the products we have designed and the collection of those touching memories. I am really proud that every stroke of my pen, every page of my powerpoint shown on the screen and every second of my time working for CCE turned into the loud applause and cheers from the audience!”

It was indeed a demonstration of great teamwork of all the Departments within CCE Committee. From the PR, Design, Tech, Dinner, Properties and Logistics to the Board, every member played his or her significant role. Let’s cheer for these “Behind the Scene Heroes”!

In a student-led activity, the CCE committee has taken huge responsibilities and made great contributions to the success of CCE. President of the CCE Board, Kevin Wu said:"Six months of efforts turned out to be extremely worthwhile. CCE 2018 set a new record: more than half of the programmes involved foreign students.  I am so happy to see more and more foreign students are interested in Chinese culture. This is the key of UWC education where students from different countries and cultures embrace and appreciate local culture and diversity. I like to thank everyone for his or her contribution. Thanks for the great guidance from the Vice Principal Li Ping.  I hope the good traditions of CCE will pass on and CCE will continue to be a great success and bring happiness to people all over the world."

 Students are mostly touched by the exemplary role played by Vice Principal, Li Ping, who never missed a single rehearsal and provided many valuable advice to improve the quality of the show. After the show, she shared those emotional remarks with her students: “ Although I am no longer young in age, but my mind remains young.  Going through all the hard work, overcoming all the difficulties and witnessing the progress of each one of you are the objectives of and the signicance of CCE. It’s gratifying to see your success! Please forgive me for all my frank remarks, straight-forward comments and nagging during  the whole process. It was all out of my true love to you!

CCE Board members of 2017 (left) and 2018 (right) with  Vice Principal Li Ping (5th from right） and Hua Ma,Dean of CCP （5th from left） 

The  significance of CCE is not only to present to the world the talents and creativity of UWC students, but also to share with people all over the world the diversity and beauty of Chinese culture.  Meanwhile, as Vice Principal Li Ping said, ”CCE couldn’t have made such brilliant achievements if these young students with such stressful school work were not given the free and inspiring environment like UWC to explore and develop their potentials.”

Thanks to all those students, teachers and staff who put efforts in CCE and all of our supporters again! See you next year and wish you the best in the year of Dog! 

Written by: CCE PR Dept. Shangbo Jing, Suyang Li, Siyuan Qi, Xin Sun

Photo by: Yi Wang, Media Group, Jaden Wang