Serene
2 min
to celebrate Chinese New Year 2019, we looked at a variety of unique Chinese festivities like Lantern Festivals, The World's largest Ice Sculpting Festival , fireworks, and Chinese New Year parades with lots and lots of dragons. In 2019, the animal sign is the Brown Pig. The Chinese calendar combines solar, lunar and 60 Stem-Branch counting systems. The 60 Stem-Branch calendar uses the names of Yin Yang Five Elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth) and 12 animals to rank the sequences. Five elements are connected to five colors - White, Black, Green, Red, and Brown. So Chinese use the color animal name to count the year. The name of 2019 is the Female Earth Pig. Brown is connected to Earth. A good year for gardening perhaps?? We discussed the highlights of many of the important inventions and discoveries that are credited to China, including, tea, porcelain, acupuncture, paper, silk, the first earthquake detector, paper money, movable type printing 960-1279 AD , fireworks, the compass, mechanical clocks , alcohol ( all of the brewers in PDX say thank you!) , and more.
We also looked at the amazing Unesco World Heritage Site, The Terra Cotta Army. It is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China and buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE . Discovered by farmers in 1974, the lifesize figures include more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits near Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum which has yet to be opened. Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. We zeroed in on the horses to sculpt in clay. The children were very keen and observant to small details which made the
pieces look very authentic.