Educational Activities Held by Hunan Provincial Museum to Celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival

In celebration of Dragon Boat Festival this year, Hunan Provincial Museum, along with many schools, has launched varieties of educational activities including the “Salon of Folk Festivals” and “Welcome the Dragon Boat Festival”. Besides, visitors have been able to take part in the “Exploration of Changsha Kingdom (the first feudal state established in Hunan, 202BD-7AD)” activity, appreciating the charm of the ancient Kingdom. 

In the morning of May 16, 2014, the museum launched its “Salon of Folk Festivals”&“Experimental Education--Moral Training” activity at the Mawangdui Primary School. Leaders from Furong education bureau, teachers of different schools and the education staff from the education center of the museum attended the activity.

At first, the education staff made a brief review of the diverse folk activities launched by Hunan Provincial Museum at Furong Distirct in 2013. Then, teacher representatives from different primary schools shared their experience in museum-school exchange activities concerning the training of small docents, involvement of teachers and the parent-children interaction etc.

Then, teachers were divided into 6 groups by drawing lots, each of the group was named by a traditional Chinese festival, including Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Tomb-sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid autumn Festival and Double Ninth Festival. Each group with an education staff from the museum was asked to plan a traditional festival activity within 15 minutes. After heated discussions, they all came up with novel ideas. Finally, each group representative gave a detailed introduction to their planning scheme.

With the concerted efforts of schools and the museum, the “Salon of Folk Festivals” achieved a great success, which brought many new perspectives and practices to the museum.

Another activity, “Welcome the Dragon Boat Festival”, has received many positive responses from many schools. Since May 27, educators from the Hunan Provincial Museum have paid visits to several primary schools and advocated their students to protect traditional Chinese cultural heritage.

Exploration Manuals for the Dragon Boat Festival, made by the museum, were also provided to students for the first time, which vividly presented the story of Qu Yuan (a patriotic poet in ancient China, for whom the Dragon Boat Festival was created.). Meanwhile, ` students knew more about the origin and customs of the festival such as making rice dumpling, dragon boat race and hanging the moxa stick etc from the school radio programmes.

Besides, students were invited to experience those folk customs, including painting the bustling scene of dragon boat race, making the rice dumplings under the guidance of the educators. They fully enjoyed the atmosphere of the traditional festival.

Those activities are part of a brand educational project -“Folk Custom&Traditional Festival” which has been launched by the Hunan Provincial Museum.  And this year marks the second year of the cooperation between the Hunan Provincial Museum and the education bureau of Furong District in Changsha. The extensive educational activities held in schools have put the cooperation on track and brought obvious social benefits. In the future, Hunan Provincial Museum will endeavor to make further cooperation with schools in diverse aspects, making the museum an interesting classroom for students.