Foreign juveniles of Chinese origin experience civic life through “Hangzhou Origin-seeking Tour” this summer vacation On August 3rd, the Chinese Culture Education into Communities Activity of 2006 Foreign Juveniles of Chinese Origin “Hangzhou Origin-seeking Tour” started in Zheda Yubi Community. More than 70 foreign juveniles of Zhejiang origin from Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, France etc. have come to Hangzhou to experience the civic life in the community.

The Chinese Culture Education Into Communities Activity is a segment of this “origin-seeking tour”. These 6 to 20 years old juveniles experienced very Hangzhoist morning exercises, family lives and Chinese dishes.

In Canghexia Park of the community, the local residents who do early morning exercises here today waited till 9:00 to perform for the kids profound Chinese cultural activities such as calligraphy, self-conducted fitball performance and Beijing opera, arosing cheers and applauses from the children. A calligraphy performer uncle Chen Jie painted calligraphy on the ground using water as Chinese ink and a big brush pen that he made himself, and he said: “I hope this can give a deep impression to the kids, and let them be interested in calligraphy. Calligraphy is a national quintessence of China. I wish these kids can all write Chinese characters and calligraphy.” Withal the community fitball coach Fang said: “The fitball we performed intergrates point-massage of traditional Chinese medicine, it’s very Chinese featured. Zhejiang is the pacemaker of Chinese fitball field; I hope the kids can remember that there is a sport called fitball in their hometown.”

As a gift for return, the blond Chinese girl Catherine sang Mo Li Hua (Jasmine) in received Mandarin, and Du Chenxi from France presented his cartoon drawings to the community.

Later, these 70 kids were assigned to 14 families to experience family life, to eat Chinese dishes and to make dumplings, etc. During the whole procedure 14 volunteers from the Hangzhou Volunteers Association Translation Team accompanied them. The volunteers’ coordinator of this activity Zhuang Kai said: “These juveniles of Chinese origin from West European countries can only speak their native European languages mostly with very little Chinese and English whilst the residents of these 14 families are mainly senior citizens; there is difficulty in their communication. The community gives us a very good practicing platform and makes us understand further of foreign juveniles of Chinese origin.”

According to the personnel from the Overseas Chinese Office of Xiacheng Borough, this summer camp will last for more than one month, during which these kids ate and lived together, learnt to write Chinese, studied cultural knowledge such as Chinese history and geography, and toured the beautiful West Lake. The Chinese Culture Education Into Communities Activity today is to practice their knowledge learnt in the camp, to solidify their knowledge, and at the same time to let them taste of the family lives of local resident and their hospitality. The summer camp of “Hangzhou Origin-seeking Tour” embodied the local features of Hangzhou and the profound characteristics of Chinese people, thus to make the foreign juveniles of Zhejiang origin remember the customs of their hometown.

The Chinese culture experiencing wave of “origin-seeking” attracted more and more foreign youngsters of Chinese origin to come back to their motherland and hometown in forms of summer and winter camps, to feel the customs of their hometown, and on the other hand to learn about the cultural knowledge of their motherland.