REPORT OF DECEMBER 2009- JANUARY 2010
Principals’ Delegation to China
From December 2 to December 10, 2009, two administrators from the Binghamton City School District and one from the Naples Central School District visited China for a week. This is the Principal’s Delegation program offered to every administrator of K- 12 institutes in the United States. CIAU will continue to support this program by introducing it to our constituents.
CYLI (Children and Youth Learning Initiative)
CIAU teacher Shirley Zhu held the first 2010 program on January 19th. Thirty-one 3rd to 5th graders from Cuba Rushford Central School participated; they learned some basic Mandarin phrases of greeting, etc., sang a song in Chinese, and played the guzheng under the supervision of Tracy Yu.
CIAU Trip to China
From December 9 – 18, AU Provost Bill Hall, CIAU Director Wilfred Huang, and Chinese Director Liu Xinquan attended the Fourth Confucius Institute Conference in Beijing.
Confucius Institutes from 83 countries
participated in the event hosted by the Hanban (Confucius Institute Headquarters).
They also went to Wuhan to meet with faculty of the CIAU partner institution CUG (China University of Geosciences).
(Provost Hall at the conference)
(Meeting with faculty of China University of Geosciences)
(Visiting Hubei Museum)
Confucius Classrooms
CIAU held a working lunch with Jessica Norton, Grant Coordinator from Binghamton City School District on January 12 to discuss setting up a Confucius Classroom and details of the February visit and performance by the 25-member troupe from CUG. Naples Central School District is also working with CIAU to establish a Confucius Classroom.
Tracy Yu and the Guzheng
Tracy Yu, visiting music teacher from Wuhan doing research with Prof. Wilfred Huang, has been demonstrating how to play the traditional Chinese instrument, the guzheng, a 21-stringed zither-like instrument plucked by the fingers. On January 14, she began teaching the guzheng to students in the Naples Central School District, a half day in the elementary school and a half day in the high school.
(Guzheng demonstration by Tracy Yu)
Confucius Portrait
A visitor to the Stele Museum in Xian, Shaanxi Province, PRC this past October, Carla Coch brought back a scroll with a stele rubbing showing a portrait Confucius.
（CIAU teacher Shirley Zhu holds the Confucius portrait from Xian）
Upcoming Events:
Shadow Puppet Show: on February 8 Chinese Theatre Works, a group of folk artists from New York City will perform a shadow puppet play entitled “Tiger Tale” and give workshops about the history of the shadow puppet show at Naples Central School (morning) and Hornell Central School (afternoon).
The CUG performance troupe will arrive on February 8th in Buffalo, where they will put on their first show at the University of Buffalo. Next, they will come to Alfred University for a gala free performance on Saturday, February 13, 7:30 pm, Holmes Auditorium in celebration of the arrival of Spring Festival. Afterwards, the troupe will travel to Corning and thereafter to several other Confucius Institutes.
Cultural Experience Project: the Hanban in Beijing has given CIAU three sets of interactive experiential computer software with hardware including touch-screen monitors, computers, projector, printer, etc. that will soon be installed in several campus locations.
The new Confucius House at 10 Park Street will be ready by March. It will house the exhibition center, classrooms, and meeting rooms for the Institute.
New teachers, Fan Luwei, Cao Huan and Li Yue will be coming from Wuhan in March. They are all from China University of Geosciences in Wuhan.
Alfred-to-Asia (A2A) will take place on April 11. CIAU is sponsoring the event. This year CIAU students from Naples and Hornell School Districts will perform on the guzheng with AU students.
