The Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday known as Duan Wu Jie, was celebrated on June 10 this year. Along with the Spring and Mid-Autumn Festivals, it is one of the three major lunar festivals in China.

To share the joy of the festival with international faculty members and students at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), the Center for Language Education (CLE) of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, together with the SUSTech Language Commission and SUSTech Global, hosted a themed event entitled “Pack Rice Dumplings & Learn Chinese”.

Dr. Wei SHEN, a Chinese Lecturer, designed a fun teaching activity to explain the culture of the Dragon Boat Festival to the international faculty members and students.

A chef from the SUSTech Cafeteria was also invited to demonstrate and instruct on how to wrap “Zongzi”, a traditional Chinese dish of the Dragon Boat Festival made of sticky rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves. This sparked a lot of interest among the participants.

At this event, international faculty members and students not only learned how to prepare “Zongzi” but also had the opportunity to experience the Chinese language and culture of the festival in a real-life context.

“Thank you for organizing such a wonderful event”, said Shafi, an international faculty member at SUSTech.