Last week, Trinity’s Chinese Department hosted an event to celebrate Lunar New Year. It took place on Friday 3 February, the 15th day of the new lunar year, which is often celebrated across Asian cultures with a Lantern Festival in a vibrant display of colour.
British rock indie band Transition, famous for their song, ‘Sorry, my Chinese is not good’, were invited to school to perform in the Mitre Theatre for students across the school. They also hosted a series of song-writing workshops for students studying Chinese.
Transition was named an outstanding contributor to British-Chinese relations in 2008 and they were the first foreign band to compose a song for the Taiwanese Olympic team going to the London 2012 Games.
Third Year student Alix says, “Apart from the amazing music played by Transition, hearing from them about how they started the band and their journey of learning Chinese, was extremely fascinating. I really enjoyed the workshop where we made our own versions of Transition’s first Chinese song (dui bu qi wo de zhong wen bu hao 对不起我的中文不好, Sorry, my Chinese is not good) in small groups. The best part was listening to the other groups’ performances, supported by the band; they were both funny and interesting.”
Second Year Emile agreed, “When I heard that Transition were coming to visit Trinity, I was taken by surprise. I knew one of their songs from the First Year, and never knew that I would be given the opportunity to meet the band in person. One of the key lessons they told us was that even if you don’t know much of a language, you can still write music and songs to connect with other people. When they started out, they knew little to no Mandarin Chinese, and are now one of the most successful bands in Taiwan. They were the first British band to win an award in Taiwan, and this goes to show that you do not have to be an expert in a subject to make an impact.”
Mrs Wang, Head of Chinese, said, “I thought it was a wonderful idea to invite such a well-known band to school, to engage not only those students studying Chinese, but the rest of the school community in an important celebration in Asia and Asian communities around the world.”
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