This week in our Monday morning circle, we practiced singing a song that Ruth T.’s friend Christof-Andreas wrote. After that Patricia announced that next week we will not have any of our normal workshops, instead we will be having a week of art. We came up with ideas for the week like: painting, drawing, clay, music and eurythmy. Then John talked to us about the stars.
In the afternoon, we gathered into Circle Hall to separate the seeds from the wheat and then we separated the good seeds from the bad.
During our Tuesday lunch break, I sat down with our co-worker, Helena and interviewed her. I asked her the same questions that I asked the previous co-workers. She answered:
“I was born in Duisburg, Germany.”
“In Germany I live with my mother, father, sister and brother.”
” I went to a Rudolf Steiner school in Düsseldorf.”
“My hobbies are sports and meeting new friends”.
“I wanted to do social work in order to work with people that have special needs.
“Right now, I’m working in fibre arts at Circle Hall and I’m living at the cottage.”
Thank you Helena for this interview.
Brigitte tells us about Vancouver’s Chinese heritage
In our Thursday morning College, Brigitte told us the about the Chinese people coming to Vancouver. We learned that 237 years ago, in 1778, the first group of 30 – 40 Chinese men came to Vancouver to build a vessel.
Then seventy years later, in 1858 many more Chinese came to British Columbia because of the gold rush in the Fraser Canyon. About twenty years later, in 1880, Chinese people came to British Columbia to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad. When they had completed work on the railroad, the Chinese moved to cities in which they would settle in a small area creating small ‘Chinatowns’.
Then Brigitte told us about a popular celebration, called Chinese New Year. We learned that this two week celebration is also known as a Spring Festival because it occurs between late January and late February. In preparation for the New Year, they would clean their houses and decorate their homes for good luck. They also prepared special foods (they believed that eating long noodles would add years to their life), purchased new clothing and visited relatives. On New Years, everybody goes out to watch the New Year’s parade, the dragon dance and the fireworks.
We also learned that the Chinese calendar is very different from ours. Brigitte told us that there are twelve lunar months in a year and each year is represented by a different animal, like rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, rooster, dog and pig.
She also told us about the legend of how Chinese New Year came about. She said that there was once a legendary monster named Nian who would eat livestock and crops from the farms. The only way that people could scare the monster away is by making a lot of noise and wearing the red color. So during the New Year celebration, red is considered good luck and fireworks are lit at midnight.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we broke in to our eurythmy, painting, reading, writing, clay, singing, walking and swimming groups.