bout 30 foreign teachers and students from Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) and other Shanghai’s colleges learned about Chinese traditional culture and art during a two-hour activity, which was hosted by SISU Center for The Art (CFA) on April 19.

Held on a big lawn, the activities included traditional painting, calligraphy, making sachets, tea-tasting and making flower bookmarks.

In a series of art-styled activities, foreign participants used Chinese traditional brushes and paints to paint the nature and then picked up flowers to decorate their paintings. Foreigners also wrote their own languages on rice papers, a kind of Chinese art paper. 

“The weather was not good, but I was completely immersed in it and forgot all the distractions when starting with my painting," said Huang Siyu, a second-year SISU student.

In the sports activivties, participants experienced some interesting games such as Touhu. It is to throw arrows into a pot, which can be dated back to the Warring States Period.

Baduanjin is another sport-related activity. It is a kind of Chinese bodybuilding exercise, which originated before Song dynasty. Baduanjin contains eight postures and playing it every day is reported to help keep fit.

The foreign participants are from 11 countries including Pakistan, Spain and Germany. Nasim, a teacher from Pakistan, was proud to show his artwork. He said that he would give it to his child as a special gift.

SISU CFA faculty and SISU students gave guidance for participants at the activity. The student guides introduced the stories and cultural implications behind those activities to foreigners.

Laura, a teacher from Italy was learning Baduanjin from Xu Lin, an expert from Faculty for Physical Education. “I have already learned something about Baduanjing before,” she said. “I’m glad to learn it again with the professional coach and I hope I can keep practicing.”