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Hong Kong, China

Decorations

To decorate for China think red and gold, Chinese lanterns, fans and dragons.

Music

Due to British influence, English and Western classical music was growing at this time. Despite that, I would still play traditional Chinese music in this area. You can just play the YouTube video below for 10 hours.

Language

Pinup some Chinese words and calligraphy if you can. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the native dialect, not Mandarin. As I was searching for a video on speaking with a Chinese accent I came across the video below which I found very interesting.

Food

The easiest thing to do here is to stick with traditional Chinese dishes if you plan on serving food in this area.

Clothing

While many British expats lived in Hong Kong at the time, there were also native Chinese people.

  

If you look at the colorized photo below you’ll see that shorts were worn as well as traditional Chinese bamboo hats.

Crafts

Since we already decorated for a Chinese New Year celebration, why not include some crafts along those lines. Here is a neat page from the KidWorldCitizen.org site.

Celebrations and Events

Lantern Festival
The lantern festival is a celebration where families hang lanterns along the streets of China.  It can be traced back to more than 2,000 years ago. Solving Lantern “riddles” is another important tradition. The maker of the lantern will write a  riddle and whoever can solve it will receive a gift. This would be fun to do with campers. In groups, they can solve riddles for points or prizes.

Here’s a riddle for you: What is the next letter in the series: OTTFFSS?

The answer is E.

O – One
T – Two
T – Three
F – Four
F – Five
S – Six
S – Seven
E – Eight

Chinese New Year
The Chinese zodiac animals are celebrated in a rotating 12-year cycle. New Year’s Eve dinner (Reunion Dinner) is believed to be the most important meal of the year. Red is a very lucky color in Chinese culture and is seen everywhere on New Years. Decorations are covered with the year’s animal (Ex: 2020 is Year of the Rat). At the parades, you’ll always see dancing dragons.

 

PAGE 1 – Decorations
PAGE 2 – Opening Activities and London, England
PAGE 3 – Paris, France
PAGE 4 – Bombay, India
PAGE 6 – Yokohama, Japan
PAGE 7 – San Francisco and New York, USA
PAGE 8 – Cultural Mistakes