On April 25, students from Chinese 2,3 and 4 were invited to go on a field trip to the Confucius Institute at the Community College of Denver, the fourth year that Mead High School has participated.

“We have a very close relationship with the Confucius Institute,” said Ms. Wang, the Chinese teacher.

The activities available were dumpling making, calligraphy, Chinese ink painting, fan making, and Tai Chi (a predecessor to Kung Fu).

Sophomore Michelle Morgan, in Chinese 2, said, “I really enjoyed doing the calligraphy and the Chinese painting the most– that was really fun.” During the calligraphy lesson, students were taught the basic strokes of Chinese characters and learned the how their name translated into English. By transforming their names phonetically into Chinese, the Chinese calligraphy expert was able to tell students the literal meaning of our names in Chinese.

“I was excited [to go]. I wanted to get out of school and also because I was promised that there would be food,” said Morgan.  

The traditional Chinese food that was prepared for the students at the end was a big draw for a lot of students. “Apparently students like the food part the most,” said Ms. Wang.

Owen Wilson, a sophomore in Chinese 3, said that he also was interested in attending, saying, “I heard that it was really fun in previous years. They had a lot of fun cultural activities; you got to do Kung Fu.”