Date: Thursday, February 28, 2019
Time: 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Location: UBC Asian Centre Auditorium
On Thursday, February 28, the Chinese Language Program hosted the 2019 UBC Lantern Festival Chinese Poetry Night to celebrate the fifteenth day of the first Chinese lunar month at the UBC Asian Centre.
The poetry conference on Lantern Festival day this year is entering its second year. We were proud to have the Department Head of Asian Studies, Dr. Ross King, to kick-start the event with an opening speech.
Just like the theme of this year’s event unveils, “Now the dusk descends, let’s meet the Moon!” On this special eve, people gathered in the Auditorium, solved Lantern riddles, and enjoyed a poetic night with the Asian Studies.
This year’s Poetry Night included a good mixture of exciting poetry contest and splendid recitals of Chinese poems. Our top-notch contestants were carefully selected from the UBC Chinese course to bring us beautiful performances and intense competition. These individuals’ passion for poems left many audiences immersed in an extreme distillation in vocabulary and form.
“Poems tell stories and focus emotions with such laser-like precision.” – Richard Goodman
As every good poem is about melody and music, the event also had musical accompaniments.
Furthermore, our knowledgeable and respected faculty members from UBC Asian Studies and UBC Library provided insightful comments on our students’ performances.
- Ross King, Professor of Korean and Head of Department
- Rebecca Chau, Senior Instructor, Japanese Language Program Director
- Jing Liu, Chinese Language Librarian, Asian Library
- Christopher Rea, Professor, Department of Asian Studies
- Bruce Rusk, Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia
Let us take a look at our prize winners of the night!
Poetry contest:
First Place Winner: Jingjing Yi
Second Place Winners: Tianran Han, Chenxi Zhang
Third Place Winners: Falicia Tang, Lin Song, Hang Zhang, Hui Ye, Yuetong Liang, Jixiang Wang, Xinyi Bao, Qinyi Zhu
Poetry Recital Competition:
First Place Winner:
Buyi Ding《念奴娇•赤壁怀古》苏轼 The Charm of a Maiden Singer, Reminiscing The Red Cliff – Su Shi
Second Place Winners:
Xiyue Feng 《钗头凤》陆游 Phoenix Hairpin – Lu You (Left)
Mira Zhang 《致橡树》舒婷To the Oak Tree – Shu Ting (Right)
Third Place Winners:
Caroline Xu 《水调歌头》苏轼 Water Song – Su Shi
Keith Xu 《回答》北岛 The Answer – Bei Dao
Lin Song《鹊桥仙》秦观 Fairy Of The Magpie Bridge – Qin Guan
Yanting Pan《雨霖鈴》柳永Lyrics to Tinkling Heavy Rain – Liu Yong
Yanxi Yang《诗经.小雅.鹿鸣》Classic Poetry, Part II Minor Odes of the Kingdom, ODE I. Luh ming.
Yiwen Zheng 《江城子.记梦》苏轼 Lyrics to the Melody of a River Town – Su Shi
Yue Qi 《水调歌头》苏轼 Water Song – Su Shi
The exciting competition and incredible performances inspired many people and allowed them to appreciate the beauty of Chinese classical poetry. As a highlight of the event, colourful lanterns were displayed in the Asian Centre Auditorium, and hundreds of colourful slips of paper with poetry lines printed on them, decorated on flower strings, were hanging from the ceiling. Audiences were invited to search for poetry lines to reassemble the original classical poem. Accompanying with graceful Chinese classical music, they were excited about reading and searching for the poetries. Those who successfully reassembled a poem won exquisite Chinese style souvenirs. In addition, UBC Hanfu Culture Society celebrated the festive occasion with us by gracing us with their gorgeous performance. Everyone enjoyed a poetic and inspirational evening at the Lantern Festival Poetry Night.
Huge thanks to all participating students for their splendid recital as it was a revel experience for audiences. Apart from the help and support we obtained from our faculty members, Teaching Assistants and Work-Learns, we would like to thank our wonderful volunteers and students for assisting and putting the event together. We would like to thank you for joining us on this enjoyable evening and wish to see you again next year!
For more photos of the event, please visit our Facebook page below:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.345321609410366&type=1&l=ee42939839