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A BRIGHT NEW YEAR
As many gathered to celebrate the Lunar New Year with our local Chinese community acknowledging the Year of the Ox—a symbol of strength and determination—we celebrated our community's strength and composure with SCG staff and students leading the way through the Lunar New Year celebrations in lockdown and our return to site.
The Premier's announcement of Melbourne's snap lockdown the day before Lunar New Year saw our Languages department, staff and students adapt planned festivities for remote.
As a school committed to raising global citizens, students celebrated the Lunar New Year at home creating lanterns, greeting cards and learning more about the significance of the most important celebration in the Lunar Calendar.
"While in remote, we dedicated our Chinese classes to learning how to make greeting cards, lanterns and red packets. We also learnt Chinese Lunar New Year songs, watched cultural shows, and students made their own Fu (Fortune) name stickers to celebrate," Jack Tan, the Foundation to Year 7 Languages teacher, said.
In our first assembly after lockdown, our Head of Languages, Elin Lin, spoke about the significance of Chinese New Year and the Year of the Ox. "With Chinese being our major foreign language at Southern Cross Grammar, celebrating Chinese New Year as a school gave our students opportunities to have a deeper appreciation of [Chinese] culture, and share in the joy as we look ahead to a new chapter of growth and strength," she said.
Head of Languages, Elin Lin, speaks about the significance of the Lunar New Year at Assembly
Year 8 student, Annie Huang, performed the GuZheng, a traditional Chinese instrument, for the first time in front of the school at the Assembly. Inspired by her mother's love for the instrument, Annie began playing the GuZheng three years ago and successfully auditioned for a place in our 2021 Select Entry Music Program in Term 4 last year.
"I was incredibly nervous, yet excited, to share the [GuZheng] with the school, and before presenting, I practised a lot at home," Annie said. "The claps and happy faces around me [after my performance] was a relief and I'm happy to have had the opportunity to perform."
To mark the the last day of celebrations, our Foundation to Year 6 students were awed by a cultural experience of drums and dance by the Jowgakuen Lion Dance Troupe.
Year 5 student, Aayman Kakkar, was composed during the event as he stepped forward with enthusiasm to speak publicly for the first time, about the symbolism behind the Year of the Ox. "I was thrilled to have the chance to speak in front of teachers and students during the Lion Dance incursion," Aayman said, "To prepare, I went over the speech a number of times until I felt confident."
When speaking about the meaning behind the Lion Dance, and its significance during Chinese New Year celebrations Elin said, "The Lion is a fierce animal and symbolises courage, strength and excellence because in Chinese culture, the Lion is the king of forests. So we use the Lion Dance to scare away the evil spirits of the past year and welcome in the new year. The Dance also strengthens people's outlook for the coming year."
