Asian Studies Outreach Program Welcomes Wang Yinghong

Superintendent Brent Kay, Wang Yinghong, and Dean Meltzer 

This week the Asian Studies Outreach Program and Randolph Union High School welcomed Visiting Scholar Wang Yinghong, from Lijiang, China. The young Visiting Scholar, who is a social studies teacher at the Vocational High School of Gucheng District, Lijiang, China, is the 9^th Visiting Scholar to participate in the State-wide Program for Asian Studies in Schools for the 2011-2012 academic year.

While Wang Yonghing has never traveled to Vermont before, the placement at Randolph Union High School is almost a homecoming since Yonghing had the opportunity to work with staff from the school. In 2009, Dean Meltzer, 8^th grade science teacher, and his wife Dona from Braintree School, went on sabbatical for a year in the Lijiang Province. Wang Yonghing met the Metltzers during their sabbatical and even had the chance to meet with their daughter.  

Wang Yinghong will be returning to China in June, but prior to that hopes to learn about Vermont and share her culture at the school.

The Art of Double Happiness

There are many traditions involved with celebrating the Lunar Chinese New Year. During her stay at CVU this past month, Visiting Scholar TaoYe from China shared with the high school students the practice of making paper cutting decorations for the New Year.  While paper-cutting may sound like an easy task, the activity involves an understanding of Chinese calligraphy, patience, and a fair bit of skill. Visiting Scholar comments on the activity below:

“The CVU students are amazing, after they learned how to  build up Chinese characters with different strokes, they drew these difficult Chinese symbols, and then cut them down, glue them on a piece of colorful paper, they took these paper- cutting home and decorated room for Chinese New Year.”

The Chinese characters the students learned how to write included “Spring”, “Double Happiness”, and “Good luck”, all important words to know if one wants to celebrate the Chinese New Year well!

Check out the pictures below to see Visiting Scholar Tao Ye and the students sharing a great cultural tradition!