Sunday, January 25, 2009

Like the year before,our school held a CNY decoration competition. You could not imagine the fun the whole class shared while decorating the classroom!Everyone had a part to play in the decoration, be it giving fresh ideas or doing the hands-on work.Even our teachers assisted in the decorations! Since this was known as the year of the ox, we purchased a number of decorations with cute little oxes decorated along it. Our front wall was lined with red banners,one reading ‘福败迎门’, for those who do not understand it, it actually means luck ushering into our class. Hmm…so how will luck present itself to our class? Maybe everyone achieving good marks for the year? Or will it be free periods for a whold day? I hope I would not need to wait too long for luck to come, especially the latter!
We also pasted ‘hongbaos’ on the blades of the fans so that when it spins, it would appear that there are ‘hongbaos’ floating in the air! Innovative, isn’t it? Those non-chinese must be wondering what are ‘hongbaos’ for. If you guessed it contains money and is given to people during Chinese New Year,you have struck the bull’s eye! They are known as red packets and it is similar to the green packets exchanged between the muslims during Hari Raya Puasa or the purple packets exchanged between Indians during Deepavali. We hung several fishes on the ceiling,to represent “年年有余”which means having abudant fortune balanced at the end of the year for savings or rainy days.Lastly, we added a “sacred” ox made from red packets too, what’s more, it really resembled an ox!(If you do not believe it, you can refer to the photo below) However, after surveying the ox , we felt that there was still something missing. The ox decoration was simply too plain, it was just on the board with nothing around it! Hence, we pasted red packets around it to make it appear more of a Chinese New Year Decoration and to fill up the empty space. And our Chinese New Year Decorations were complete!
When the winners of the competition was announced, we won the second prize in the cohort! We had won a reward for our hard work! Although not everyone got a share of the prize, but most importantly, we all had learnt that with hard work, you will suceed. And while decorating the classroom, we had developed an even closer relationship with our classmates, learning to work as a team.

posted at 5:46 PM