In the first month of Grade 9-10 Beginner Chinese class at OAc Amenia, students in Ms. Jamie Pan’s class worked on two cultural research projects — one turning inward toward family history, and one turning outward toward one of China’s most beloved holidays.
A group of students with Chinese family backgrounds took on a personal research project: tracing their own roots. Each student researched a Chinese province their family calls home — from Liaoning in the northeast, to Jilin further north, to Guangxi in the subtropical south, to Sichuan in the southwest — digging into each region’s geography, culture, and what makes it well known. Where possible, they interviewed a parent or grandparent along the way, practicing new vocabulary like 家乡 (hometown) and 我的家人来自…… (My family is from…). Presenting to their classmates, they shared everything from favorite regional foods to family stories that don’t often come up in a typical classroom.
Meanwhile, the rest of the class turned its attention to 中秋节, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on September 25 this year. Students researched the legend of 嫦娥 (Chang’e) and the moon, the tradition of sharing 月饼 (mooncakes), and the meaning behind moon-viewing and family reunion — then compared it to festivals and traditions from their own family backgrounds, from Korea and the United States to Brazil and Slovakia, discovering some interesting overlaps between celebrations from opposite sides of the world.
Both projects speak to what Chinese class is really about: communication first, and culture right alongside it — because language and culture are never really separate. That connection carries extra meaning in a classroom like ours, where many students already grow up navigating multiple languages and cultures within their own families; being able to trace, compare, and talk about family and cultural traditions in Chinese class gave that everyday experience a new dimension. Everyone walked away having practiced real, meaningful Chinese — and having learned a little more about their classmates along the way.
