A series of ingenious Chinese New Year celebration activities brought to the FoSE students and staff, including dragon dance, tea arts, Yue opera, Chinese calligraphy and paintings, and making dumplings.

The New Year Party is an offline activity of the “FoSE for Earth” project, which aims to introduce the working and living experience of our international academic staff in the FoSE and bring a diverse and inclusive cultural experience to our students and staff.

In the opening ceremony, Professor Tao Wu, Dean of Faculty of Science and Engineering and Ms Min Fang, the Director of Yangming Former Residence delivered speeches respectively. As Professor Wu mentioned, FoSE has a truly international faculty group and we strive to create a respectful and inclusive environment that values the diverse backgrounds of our staff and students.

Meanwhile, the Faculty has also contributed to the cultural exchange activities and promote Chinese traditional culture. Ms Min Fang said, “We have collaborated for five years, and FoSE has become an important window for Yangming culture to go overseas. We also hope more fruitful results will be achieved in the future collaboration.”

Students and staff enjoyed these traditional activities. Dr Richard Rankin, Assistant Professor in Applied Mathematics passionately joined the dragon dance activity. One of the PhD candidate, Taiseer Hussain from Indonesia, said that these excellent performances gave him a taste of the charming traditional culture and enriched his understanding of Chinese culture. Another PhD student from Malaysia, Joshua Lai experienced the dumpling-making session, and he said dumplings were super good and made him feel at home.

It is worth mentioning that the new Provost of UNNC, Professor Jon Garibaldi also joined the party and participated in many different activities. His calligraphy received many compliments from students and teachers onsite. “Although I have been to China many times, this is the first time that I experienced so many Chinese New Year celebration activities. This is an amazing experience. My New Year resolution is to learn Chinese, and Happy New Year to everyone,” he said.

This New Year event attracted more than two hundred participants, and they deeply experienced the charm of traditional Chinese culture. Faculty of Science and Engineering has more than 130 academic staff from 23 countries and regions, with various cultures blending here. Ms Sophia Han, Marketing and Communications Business Partner – Senior Manager for FoSE said, “As the first Sino-foreign university in China, we are devoted to telling Chinese stories and promoting Chinese culture to the world. We hope this activity can strengthen the New Year atmosphere, giving a chance to all faculty members to taste the Chinese culture, and celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year.”