In the afternoon of March 15, our university organized 27 international students from 8 countries, including Madagascar, Vietnam, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Rwanda, South Africa and Samoa, to visit Nanchang Chengnan Dragon Lantern Industrial Company to learn how to craft dragon lanterns and the way to dance them.

At the beginning of the activity, Shi Kebin, the non-genetic inheritor of Jiangxi Province, introduced the culture of dragon lantern to the international students, thus, they learned the symbolic meaning of dragon lantern colors and dragon balls in detail and deeply perceived the Chinese cultural connotation contained in dragon lanterns. In the dragon lantern crafting workshop, Mengru from Rwanda added eyes to the dragon-head, which symbolizes giving life to the dragon, and the international students took pictures to keep this moment. This also enabled them to understand intuitively what the finishing touch is.

In the process of making the dragon lantern, the students worked together under the patient guidance of the staff and assembled the dragon lantern step by step in the order of dragon tongue, dragon ball, dragon tooth, dragon eye and dragon horn.  Finally, each colorful and vivid ribbon dragon was finished. Afterwards, the students couldn't help but dance the dragon lanterns they had made, and the colored dragons rhythmically danced, tossed and rotated in the air, dancing lightly and vigorously.

Learning how to dance the dragon was both challenging and joyful. Under the guidance of Shi Kebin, the students learned the simple dragon dance movements and then danced the golden dragon in style, which won the applause of those present.

The Chengnan Dragon Lantern is an intangible cultural heritage of Jiangxi Province, and our school has been cooperating with them for many years to spread the culture of dragon lantern to international students, in addition, our school has set up a Chinese cultural experience base for international students at the production base of Chengnan Dragon Lantern.