On the evening of Sept. 27th, a party called Chinese Festival Revelry, organized by Students Union of School of Economics and Management, was staged at the Xiachenshi Plaza, on Siping Campus. The event was sponsored by International Cooperation Office of SEM and supported by Students Office of SEM. Many international students from different countries and students from our university as well as other universities in Shanghai were drawn to the party, and they enjoyed a wonderful night.

There were several booths to introduce four Chinese traditional festivals, namely, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Dragon-Boat Festival, the Spring Festival, Double Seventh Festival(the Chinese Valentine’s Day), to promote traditional Chinese culture and establish friendships between Chinese and international students. There was booth for students to make wishes; in addition, almost every booth prepared nice games related to the customs of a certain festival, ranging from riddles both in Chinese and English, traditional Chinese String Weaving, Scissor-cut, to quizzes about the festivals, little games between couples and pair-matching, all of which refreshed the students’ impression about China by this much more local introduction.

Apart from the popularity among the booths of the outer field, the performances in inner field were no less popular with continual applause——Legends about the festivals like Chang’e Ascending to the Moon and Quyuan’s Drowning himself into the Miluo River were reenacted. What made the festival reach the climax was a very popular song called Jiangnan Style, which was originally a Korean hit, and people danced to their heart’s content in a very hot atmosphere.

During this Festival, many foreigners showed great interest in and were curious about the traditional Chinese culture like Paper-cut for window decoration, Scissor-cut, traditional clothes in Han Dynasty, Zongzi, mooncakes, which they had never known. A French student’s words can best exemplify this——“I have never seen Chunlian before, and I’m very much surprised to see the color red as in my country red doesn’t mean luck.”

In recent years, with the deepening of cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, more and more international students come to Tongji University. Tongji Chinese students are very glad to have more activities like this to give a broader look of China to foreigners. SEM does hope by doing so that the cultural charm and essence of China, can be better known by more foreign students and attract them to come to China, especially Tongji University.