NCI Ningbo Holds Adult Ceremony for Students from Nottingham Confucius Classroom

On 18th October, after the welcome ceremony in the morning, teachers and students from the Nottingham Confucius Classroom Alderman White School attended a traditional Chinese Adult Becoming Ceremony in Yinzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum.

According to the traditional practice, the first part of the ceremony was to salute to the Confucius, a great Chinese philosophers whose theory of ‘kindness, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trust’ influenced generations of Chinese people. The practice was guided by Mr Yixun Huang, Taiwanese scholar in traditional Chinese culture.

students in traditional costume

ready for the ceremony

salut to the Confucius

Then, Mr Huang tutored the students how to write Chinese character ‘人（people）’, ‘大 (big)’, ‘天 （sky）’, and ‘夫（goodman）’ with Chinese calligraphy brush pen and explained the thoughtful meaning beneath the characters.

wrote Chinese characters

student work

‘In Chinese no matter you are a man (男人) or a woman （女人）, the basic thing is to be a right person （人）’; ‘Being an adult (大人) means a person is able to take social responsibility, thus there is a horizontal line in the middle of 人’; ‘The sky (天) is always on top of your head, it reminds you to always behave properly.’; ‘When being able to take social responsibility and always behave properly, one will become a goodman (夫)’. Mr Huang said.

After the calligraphy class, Mr Huang drew a drop between the eyebrows of every student with pure and cleaning water to wish the students an always pure heart and very good luck in future. Students hit the drum to remind themselves of what they should do, hit the bell to alarm themselves of what they should never do, and hit the gong to show they’ve made their mind.

drew a drop between the eyebrows

hit the bell

In the end, students and their head teachers played dragon dance for fun. Adam Spencer, a student of Alderman White School, said it is a truly unforgettable day and a very special adult becoming ceremony that he will memorize for life.

dragon dance

Why the NCI Ningbo choose this day to hold the adult becoming ceremony? It is because 18 Oct is the birthday of one of the students. A birthday party was waiting for the students where they would jointly celebrate it with another visiting group from Nottingham – the head teachers’ delegates who came to Ningbo for the development of Ningbo – Nottingham education cooperation.