|
CHICAGO, Sept. 23-- Hundreds of students from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and their parents gathered at Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago Saturday to have a taste of traditional Chinese culture at the annual Chinese Cultural Festival. Along the hallway of Whitney Young, students and their families learned Chinese calligraphy, paper-cutting, kite-making and Wei Qi, and tried to use chopsticks at more than 20 exhibitors that presented Chinese culture-related activities. Jiangsu Provincial Performing Arts Troupe from China presented a 90-minute performance in the auditorium of the school. Two men propped up a lion costume and presented to the audience Chinese traditional lion dance, they jumped up and down and did some acrobatics on two benches under the lion costume, drawing waves of applauses. Chinese artists also performed traditional Chinese folk dance, songs, and Chinese acrobatics. This is the fourth year for the Confucius Institute in Chicago (CIC) and the CPS to host the event. "Our Chinese Cultural Festival in the past three years was a great success, with more than 2,000 attendees from CPS and the general public," said Jane Lu, Director of CIC. "We want to share the fun and celebrate Chinese culture again this year." Hong Lei, Chinese Consul General in Chicago, told Xinhua that Chinese Cultural Festival is a platform to promote Chinses culture as well as to review the achievements of Chinese Teaching in Chicago. | 
