News
| Welcome to China| Playing with Shadows—— The 5th Traditional Culture Experience Activity in 2019 was Successfully Held |
| Time：2019-11-08 |
| “Welcome to China” is a series of activities organized by the Tongji Jiading Library, which are aimed to let international students experience traditional Chinese culture. The activity of Playing with Shadows was held on October 25th at 7:00pm in Room 1421 on the 14th floor of the library. The activity offered a chance to experience ancient Chinese shadow puppetry, and the cut-out figures(shadow puppets) involved in this activity are from Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels in China. At the beginning of the activity, the Chinese student vividly introduced the history of shadow puppetry in detail. Besides, he played a video to the international students to help them know more about it. Then, the Chinese lecturer briefly introduced the characters and experiences of the heroes in the Journey to the West. His introduction is so interesting that attracted the international students to experience the fun and have a better understanding of the meaning of shadow puppetry. Shadow puppetry, also known as "shadow play" or "light and shadow play", is an ancient means of entertainment that uses lights to illuminate the silhouettes of characters made of animal skins or cardboard to perform stories. During the performance, the puppeteers, behind the translucent scrim, manipulated the opera characters, sang and narrated the story with the local popular tunes, accompanied by percussion instruments and strings with strong local characteristics. At that time when there was no film and television, shadow puppetry had become one of the main entertainment activities among Chinese people. After the introduction, everyone was eager to try it themselves.
Under the arrangement of the Chinese lecturer, the international students carried out the role assignment and plot conception. Then, they made a new plot based on traditional role setting by using the shadow puppets and staged a new Journey to the West.  In the activity,the international students experienced the fun of the shadow puppets. They played a plot and used their creativities to develop the plot unexpectedly, which made everyone laugh. At the end of the activity, they took a photo together and expressed their love to the traditional Chinese culture.
 The students participated in the activity came from different countries. However, they learned the history and experienced the fun of the shadow puppets together, they expressed their interests in the traditional Chinese culture and their expectation to the next activity!
 Let’s come together next time! “Welcome to China” is a series of activities that could help international students know more about traditional Chinese culture. It is run by the Tongji Jiading Library and aimed to attract international students to learn Chinese culture. It has various of interesting activities and could promote the integration of Chinese and Western culture. We hope to bring students new experience of traditional culture in the future! |
