International Children’s Day, June 1st, is a big date for children in ideologically and culturally different worlds. And children in Hangzhou, steeped in the city's profound history and multifaceted culture, have their own ways to rejoice in their day.

Accessible to public handicraft courses, the communist party service center utilizes its resources to organize a series of children-targeted activities, such as sharing stories of the Song Dynasty and making shadow puppetry props, to transmit the charm of traditional culture. With the paper props they’ve created, their self-directed periods of opera —Protagonists of Song Dynasty, Poems of Song Dynasty, A Day of Song Dynasty come into the stage, which injects hard-to-count vitality into their life and open doors to the world of arts when they get caught up with the plays. 

Puppetry play is not the only way genuine childhood marries with traditional culture. We’ve also seen Song poetry being another channel to ignite children’s imagination and creativity. Feihualing, the name of the tune to which poems are composed, literally means a poem or a short passage sung to a cloud of fallen flowers. On Children’s Day, it is used to name activities to encourage children to compose poems with their literature knowledge learned at school. Zhang Yihui, the Party’s secretary of a block in Shangchen District, said that this is a very interesting ancient poem contest, giving opportunities to children to recognize features of the time-honored literature. 

Working hand in hand with Hangzhou Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital and Xiaofeng Bookstore, Beishan subdistrict office in Xihu District, a garden tour is designed to immerse children into the intangible cultural heritage. During the tour, children are presented with multifarious materials to design a grass cap by themselves, inscribe seals based on their distinctive thoughts, and learn to wrap fragrant herbs into a small bag which we call Xiangnang in Chinese and sets a high requirement of patience and technique of those who eager to make a gorgeous one. 

It takes several days longer to list all these diverting activities to celebrate children’s one of the most important days of the year. The very praiseworthy lie is that the holders possess a clear vision that we need to make integrate of Chinese culture pearls and hilarious childhood and start the job of passing on heritage from kids. But there is still a caveat that the mission of shaping a bright future for kids can’t be fulfilled with the attitude of Mr. Almost and cursorily glossing over children’s big day. In daily teaching or other engagement with children, we should be known for keeping the balance between easing their burdens and upping their perceptions of quality cultures.

Editor: Fan Wenwu