The joy of aupairing in China has never been just about English teaching in exchange of Chinese learning or fun play with children while travelling along with host family. Other than that, there are various culture activities that will always be the highlights of Aupairs' adventure in China. To give the ideas, here is a list of culture activities that you may like to have a go to enrich your experience in China.
Chinese traditional opera
With thousand years' evolution, Chinese opera has developed a wide range of categories basing on geographical uniqueness. Not only costumes vary but tunes show characters of people living in different regions.
Through the combination of singing, narrating and dancing, Chinese opera tell stories of people at different social classes and reflect lives in ancient China. While at the same time, it has become one of the most important ways of entertainment in today’s society and one of most precious treasures of Chinese intangible cultural heritage.
Types of opera in different areas:
Beijing-Peking Opera/Qing Yi
Shanghai, Ningbo and Suzhou-Yue Opera/Huang Mei Opera
Chengdu and Chongqing-Chuan Opera
Tea ceremony
The long history of Chinese tea culture brings out the unique way of Chinese serving tea. For Chinese serious tea loves, tea drinking is not a thirstiness stopper rather it is an appreciation of flavour of time and the pureness of the nature.
Various tea sets with different sizes and shapes are employed on the tea ceremony to prepare just one small cup of tea and tea wares vary depending on types of leaves.
Long procedures allow the aged scent of leaves to release and more importantly give a moment to enjoy a slow-paced life. Thanks to these 'complicated' preparation, it has been a source of inspiration for exquisite tea-sets, making tea drinking a more elegant enjoyment.
Most popular types of tea in China:
Green tea: Longjing/Tie Guanyin
Black tea: Pu Er/Da Hongpao
Chinese martial arts
Having been precedent in military strategy since ancient time, China has been keeping its oriental martial arts attracting increasing interest among martial artists around the world.
In today's society, it has been deemed less likely as a way of defence, rather more of a way of healthy life style and to keep positive attitudes towards hardships and challenges.
The most common two Martial arts:
Taichi-Preferred mostly among senior age groups as its slow movement.
Shaolin-Popular among young people for its fast-paced action and has been taken as a symbol of heroism.
Calligraphy and brush painting
Character is one the greatest invention of human being's civilisation and Chinese calligraphy keeps this pride alive with thousand years' evolution, development and innovation. Chinese calligraphy is a way of expression beyond writing itself.
With various scripts, it embodies people's attitudes towards lives in changing society. There are feelings and voices from words and thus they are being delivered in a powerful way.
Different scripts in Chinese calligraphy
From standard and clerical script to semi-cursive and cursive script, it shows how Chinese calligraphy adjusts itself to the society’s changing writing preference so that to keep handwriting not only a way of recording but also a form of art.
You may not be able to experience all of above at one time during your aupairing, but hopefully after reading this, it will help you to find out which one you are interested in the most and definitely have a go for it when you are in China!
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