Racial Harmony and School Exchanges

In VS, we pride ourselves on being Global Minded and that comes about from being sensitive to the racial and cultural diversity we have in Singapore. We just celebrated Racial Harmony Day couple of weeks ago with an intense Chapteh competition:


This month sees VS playing hosts to myriad groups of visitors, from China alone we've got at least 3 different groups. Well, in line with our Core Values of Global Mindedness, VS has been involved with the Sino-Sin Exchange programme since 2003. Together with Cedar Girls, and other participating schools, MOE sends a delegation of schools from Singapore to visit selected schools in Beijing, China; these schools then organise a return visit to Singapore.

During their first day at VS, the Wushu Team and I were invited by Miss Yong Soon Yi to share a bit of the local Chinese customs. The Straits Chinese have carried over many interesting cultural traditions that seem to have fallen into disuse in mainland China. Thus, we thought that traditional Southern Lion dancing would be a good way to connect and bridge the cultural gap by introducing a traditional Chinese performing art that our Beijing friends would likely not be familiar with.

They took to it with gusto and with the dedicated instruction of our Wushu boys, we can see that they were quick to learn the beats and rhythms to this fascinating performance art:


We explained the basic rudiments of how the Lion is 'awakened' from its sleep, its 3 bows towards heaven, earth and man, how it proceeds to salute and greet the audience,etc. It is definitely not an easy thing to learn in one lesson but our Chinese guests were more than sporting and Vice-Captain Pang Hongyun patiently guided them through the basic steps:


As they got more confident, they began to take to it more readily- According to Miss Yong, they might put on a small performance next Monday when the girls come to visit from Cedar.:) Looking at this pair, we just might be able to pull it off!


So on behalf o Victoria School, we welcome our guests from 三帆中学and wish them a fruitful and exciting stay in Victoria School and Singapore.