Students watched Peking Opera and tried on the Peking Opera masks during our recent Mandarin class.

In the last few weeks, the Year 0-1 students have been learning to translate colours from English to Mandarin. They have learned the colour culture in China and the colour personality in Peking Opera. In Chinese culture, colours are given lucky meanings, for example, red is the national colour of China and it symbolizes happiness and good fortune, while yellow is the colour of royalty. Chinese Opera uses different colours to represent characters' personalities, for example red indicates bravery and blue indicates royalty. The colours were usually painted on performers’ faces or masks in opera performances.

Traditional Chinese opera began in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It is a fantastic, imaginative retelling of familiar folk stories and historical events. It is still popular today, mixing singing, dancing, poetry, martial arts, acrobatics, and above all, colourful costumes and masks.