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NZCFS Wellington Branch December 2016 Newsletter

2017 CHINESE NEW YEAR BANQUET

dau-1Sunday 15 January 2017 at 6.30pm

Grand Century Chinese Restaurant, 84 Tory Street, Wellington

Ambassador Wang Lutong, Patron Hon Philip Burdon, Wellington Mayor Justin Lester and National President Dave Bromwich have been invited.

The Programme will include our traditional Quiz Contest and Raffles.

The cost, including wine and juice, is:

$35 per person for non-members and $30 for financial members

To book, please complete the form (PDF or Word version) and send to the Treasurer by Tuesday 10 January 2017.

Subscriptions for 2017 membership are due. The attached registration form also includes a membership renewal form if you are not able to attend the banquet but still wish to renew your society membership.

Electronic Banking is available for payment. Details are provided on the registration form. When making an electronic payment, please ensure your name is specified as part of the payment details. Please let us know of any dietary requirements.

Seating places will not be allocated this year.  We encourage you to arrange a group of 10 and book a table. No last minute arrivals please. 

NZCFS logo thumbnailAnnual General Meeting 2017

The NZCFS Wellington Branch Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 16 March 2017 at Connolly Hall. The Agenda will be emailed to members closer to the time, and nominations are welcomed. Members are encouraged to stand for one of the elected positions. Nominations should be made on the nomination forms and sent to the Secretary. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor at the meeting. 

2017 – Year Of The Rooster

Chinese New Year is on 28 January 2017, heralding in the Year of the Rooster. The Year of the Rooster is represented by the Earthly Branch character 酉, and is the only bird included in the Chinese zodiac.

zodiac-roosterThe rooster is the dawn announcer waking people up on time in the morning. Since the ancient times, it has been thought to have the ability of divining the future. Also in Greek mythology, it is said that the rooster can feel what will happen in the future. So, it is regarded as the god’s ambassador. The people born in the year of the rooster also have the ability to discern what is coming. They like to think more and have a good plan when dealing with things. Also, they usually use in ways others could never have imagined to solve problems which making others surprise.

The people under the Rooster sign are warm, generous, diligent, sociable and very capable speakers. They have quick wit and think fast. So sometimes they are impatient. The men born in the year of the rooster usually pay great attention on his appearance. They dress well no matter in casual clothes or suit. The women also are beautifully dressed with a variety of colors.

The Rooster people of different elements also have different personalities and fortune:

  • Metal Rooster: 1981 (Feb. 05, 1981 – Jan. 24, 1982)
  • Earth Rooster: 1969 (Feb. 17, 1969 – Feb. 05, 1970) ]
  • Fire Rooster: 1957 (Jan. 31, 1957 – Feb. 17, 1958) and 2017 (Jan.28, 2017 – Feb. 15, 2018)
  • Wood Rooster: 1945 (Feb. 13, 1945 – Feb. 01, 1946) and 2005 (Feb.09, 2005 – Jan. 28, 2006) 
  • Water Rooster: 1933 (Jan. 26, 1933 – Feb. 13, 1934) and 1993 (Jan. 23, 1993 – Feb. 09, 1994)

Pacific China Friendly Relations Extended In New Association

Pacific China Friendship AssociationNew Zealand China Friendship Society National Executive members Dave Bromwich (National President), George Andrews (National Vice President North Island (Northern)), Miao Fan (Hamilton Branch President) and Heiko Lade (Hawkes Bay Branch) attended the inaugural conference and establishment of the Pacific-China Friendship Association (PCFA), 25-28th October 2016.  Her Royal Highness, Princess Salote Mafile’o Pilolevu Tuita of Tonga hosted the gathering which was held in the capital Nuku’alofa. The Princess of Tonga is the current President of the Tonga China Friendship Association.

In attendance were delegates from the China Friendship Societies from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, New Zealand Maori, the Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Tonga. Apologies were received from the Federated States of Micronesia and Vanuatu. Observers were from Australia-China Friendship and Exchange Association, Hawaii and New Caledonia.

The main keynote speeches were presented by HRH Princess Pilolevu Tuita, who declared the Conference open, and Madame Li Xiaolin, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (Youxie).  Madam Li Xaolin encouraged this gathering of the pacific nations and has invited all member nations of PCFA to be hosted for the second meeting in Hainan Island, China, tentatively in early 2018.  Other addresses were given by dignitaries and leaders from Tonga.

During proceedings, HRH Princess Pilolevu Tuita and Mme L i Xiaolin signed a Memorandum of Understanding for friendly cooperation between the Pacific-China Friendship Association and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The Princess of Tonga has been elected to the life position of Patron of the Pacific China Friendship Association, which she accepted with a vote of thanks, and a commitment to be a working patron.

For more information, please visit: https://nzchinasociety.org.nz/28200/pacific-china-friendly-relations-extended-in-new-association/.

Mandarin Corner 汉语角 Saturdays 3.15-5 pm

Room 103, 24 Kelburn Parade, Victoria University of Wellington. 

Mandarin corner in WellingtonMandarin Corner (Wellington), established in 1995 by NZCFS, is a weekly event where students learning Chinese meet with native speakers of Chinese for conversation and cultural activities in a friendly, relaxed setting, and is open to all level. Come along if you are interested, and attendance is free.

The Mandarin Corner will be closed until March 2017. For more information contact Yinghui Li at [email protected].

First Fellow Of Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (NZCFS) Is A Conservator

Diana Coop
Diana Coop, Conservator, is first Fellow of the prestigious Winston Churchill Memorial Trust-NZCFS Fellowship

In June 2016, the New Zealand China Friendship Society (NZCFS) joined with the prestigious Winston Churchill Memorial Trust which awards annual Fellowships to Kiwis who wish to progress in their chosen field in helping peoples overseas.

The Fellowship involving NZCFS specifies that this particular Fellowship be for travel to China to gain knowledge, understanding and experience of Chinese culture and values whilst also sharing NZ culture and values in China. This year’s Fellowship winner, indeed the first, was recently announced with Diana Coop being the successful applicant.

Diana will now be able to follow her wish to open a collegial exchange, i.e. an exchange between experts in her field, in order to provide improved professional relationships between New Zealand and Chinese conservators of cultural materials. Many exhibitions of cultural materials are presently being organised by both countries with a view to exchange. However, little is known about the other country’s conservation working practices, techniques and skills, with this being often further complicated by language barriers.

Diana intends to travel to four Chinese main centres, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Beijing to meet material conservators in 19 major cultural institutions, where she hopes to investigate and build an understanding of Chinese technical practices.

Her visits to art galleries, museums, libraries and history museums, will include Shanghai Museum; Palace Museum Beijing and the National Library of China. From these Diana will be able to report on protocols and standards used by Chinese conservators that should help to facilitate the organisation of future cultural exchanges involving the loan of art and other cultural materials and assist conservators and other cultural professionals to understand Chinese practices.  The report will help professionals to make decisions on how Chinese cultural materials coming to New Zealand and vice versa can be protected, delivered and exhibited in a safe way and to return them to their place of origin with the minimum of difficulty.

Diana’s project will help to clarify the standards and expectations for all parties and assist considerably in the loan processes between China and NZ cultural institutions. For more information, please visit: https://nzchinasociety.org.nz/28261/first-fellow-of-winston-churchill-memorial-trust-nzcfs-is-a-conservator/

Prestigious Scholarship For Marsden Student

Lucy BergerSamuel Marsden Collegiate School student Lucy Berger has been offered a scholarship to study at Peking University, the most prestigious university in China. Thousands of students apply but very few pass the entrance exams. “This is an extraordinary achievement for Lucy and we wish her all the best on this exciting opportunity to study abroad” says Marsden School Principal Jenny Williams.

Lucy has had a fabulous grounding in Chinese at Marsden School, having been tutored by award winning Chinese teacher Jing Ying Herrington and benefitting from the Confucius class room status Marsden School holds. Mrs Herrington said “I was very excited to hear of Lucy’s news. To be able to study at Peking University is every Chinese student’s dream. I believe Lucy will have a very bright future and this opportunity will open many doors for her, I am very proud of Lucy’s achievement!”

“At Marsden we are committed to ensuring the Chinese language and culture is promoted school-wide and since its introduction in 2007 Chinese has been a rapid growth area of the curriculum”, says Williams. “Our students have experienced considerable enjoyment and success in their learning of Chinese and our Confucius classroom provides an attractive and dynamic work environment to facilitate learning.”

Students Annabelle Jessop, Lucy Berger and Amy Cooper won the national senior, senior runner-up and junior awards last year in Chinese Proficiency Competition – two winners, let alone three, from one school being unheard of. “As the world’s demand for Chinese learning increases our students will stand in good stead to take up global opportunities beyond their studies at Marsden”, says Herrington.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1612/S00001/restigious-scholarship-for-marsden-student.htm

A full PDF of this newsletter is available at NZCFS Wellington Newsletter December 2016.