Bringing a taste of China to Marlborough

Preparations for the third annual Chinese Language Week celebrations are well underway, with the free event promoting Chinese language, culture and food in the Marlborough region.

It aims to bridge the cultural and linguistic knowledge gap within the local community to make Chinese languages and cultural practises more accessible.

Activities on the day will include Chinese calligraphy & tea art workshops, traditional mooncake tasting, cultural displays and performances.

“We want to have lots of different angles for people to approach Chinese culture more than just the languages”, says Marlborough Chinese Association president Mandy Li.

“Each year we pick a phrase to represent our focus for the event and this year’s is “one family”, because we celebrate being a part of the multicultural Marlborough community and want to invite anyone into China for a day without spending thousands on return flights”.

“The week before Chinese Language Week is Māori Language Week, so we are organising a joint display in Seymour Square to celebrate both weeks alongside local iwi.

“No matter where we’re from, we all bring something unique and different and weeks like this make the community tighter and more understanding”.

Census records say 36 per cent of Chinese New Zealanders speak Northern Chinese Mandarin, 20 per cent speak Cantonese, 6.9 per cent speak other varieties of Chinese, and just under a quarter of all Chinese New Zealanders do not speak any form of Chinese.

The week’s events are not only targeted at non-Chinese New Zealanders, but also spotlighting the variety within Chinese language and culture.

“There’s so many little things in written Chinese languages because it started as picture graphs, like for example the symbol for panicking says ‘heart up and down’ but busy says ‘heart dying’, so there’s lots of little fun things within the language.

“We also take performances to kindergartens and schools throughout the week, but last year we went to Seymour Kindergarten they had made their own dragon heads out of cardboard and did a dragon dance for us instead which was fantastic.”

Mandy and the Marlborough Chinese Association would like to thank the Rata Foundation, Marlborough Regional Council, the Marlborough Multicultural Centre and all of the volunteers involved in organising the week’s events.

The Marlborough Chinese Language Week celebrations will take place on September 30 from 1pm at Marlborough Events Centre, with free entry and plenty of fun for the whole family.