Mid-Autumn Festival is 9 days away!
Is it important for you to celebrate Chinese festivals like 新年，中秋节，and 端午节?
If yes, why is it important?
If no, may I invite you to reconsider?
As a parent I want to help my kids like Chinese more, and over the years, I've found that one super effective way is to celebrate cultural festivals.
This is echoed by various educators' lectures in the recent online Mother Tongue Language Symposium, and also something that my friend Frank @phrancphoo recommends us parents to do!
To be honest, as a growing teen and young adult,
at times I felt that festivals can be lame, same-old every year,
plus a waste of time and money 🙈
Now as a parent, festivals take on a whole new different meaning.
Let me share with you some thoughts on this topic after mulling over the past few weeks.
⭐️ Celebrating cultural festivals is important because it ⭐️
1️⃣ connects us to our cultural heritage, our history and our people
Festivals help us remember our roots and where we’ve come from. It helps us be grounded, to know who we are within the global community across the historical timeline.
2️⃣ strengthens bonding within the family and community
Festivals are times to do something special as a family, to create precious memories together, to pull our hearts closer together.
Festivals add structure to our family or social lives, through repeated occurrences through the year and over the years.
My hope is that my kids will remember these happy memories of us celebrating festivals like 中秋节 and be secure in our love as they grow up ❤️
It’s amazing how the kids remember fun times
making mooncakes with friends,
eating 汤圆 with uncle and grandma,
reading festive books with friends,
and watching funny Chinese kungfu movies on TV during CNY.
3️⃣ provides a meaningful setting to interact in target language
As we read, cook, eat, spend time together,
there are plenty of chances to up exposure in 听说 and 读写!
If we now agree that celebrating cultural festivals is important,
the next question is…
How can we celebrate it?
Stay tuned for the next post!
Save and share if this helps!
PS: We have awesome festive reads on our webstore - check them out too!