Rana Hanyayu (Mia) Niu

In General English class last month, we were asked to work together as a team of six to complete a project on the theme of traditional Chinese culture. The project consists of two parts: the production of group posters and the gallery walk, which is open to all teachers and students at the school. We could make up teams by ourselves and choose topics we were interested in to investigate and comprehend. I'm excited about this new form of project, and my team was delightedly looking forward to the presentation day.

As we embarked on our journey to prepare for the project presenting about Chinese ethnic minorities, our enthusiasm was matched only by our determination to deliver a memorable presentation to the whole school. Our group chose to introduce the Dai, Miao, and Zang, also known as Tibetan. After the first two group meetings, we efficiently divided the work for everyone. My friend Annie and I were passionate about Tibetan culture, so we two mainly focused on Tibetan culture. After that, we started our journey of searching information on different websites. After we had fully prepared the content about each minority, we made a delicate poster by cooperating. Everyone took this mission very seriously. We were very careful and wholehearted during the preparation. Though it was my first time drawing a poster for a project, and I was worried about my drawing skills, my partners gave me enough trust and encouragement. Eventually, I finished the Tibetan painting part very satisfactorily. What's more, in order to make the presentation visually better, we came up with the idea of dressing as Dai, Miao, and Tibetan people on the gallery walk to let our visitors feel such a cultural touch more directly.

We poured our hearts and souls into our presentation on the day we presented, drawing on months of research and rehearsal to deliver a presentation that we hoped would do justice to the rich tapestry of China's minority cultures. As we finished our speeches, we couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in what we had accomplished. While watching other groups ' presentations, I couldn't help but marvel at the creativity and innovative ideas of other teams in our grade. As we watched other groups, such as Mahjong's and Chinese calligraphy stations, presenting and saw the effort they put into their performances, we were impressed by the sheer diversity of talent and passion on display. From elaborate costumes to handcrafted artifacts, each group had spared no expense in bringing their ideas to reality. It was a testament to the collective commitment to excellence that permeated our grade. Seeing teachers and other students smiling with satisfaction and learning new knowledge, I believe they were really impressed. From traditional dances to heartfelt presentations, each performance was testifying to the beauty and diversity of Chinese traditional culture.

Additionally, after working through this project, I truly feel that my expression skills have been greatly improved. I can express my thoughts using English much more fluently. More importantly, I learned a lot about the customs and culture of the Tibetan people. Their unique culture undoubtedly impressed me. I will definitely travel to Tibet and experience their culture in person someday. In this project, my biggest takeaway was that our Chinese culture is very broad and profound. It is worth every Chinese person learning about and appreciating. While we may have all approached the task differently, the one thing that united us was our shared commitment to preserving and promoting the rich cultural heritage of China.