Hi,Dear Friends



How are you? Have you had a wonderful weekend and a fresh new week? I do hope you have.

On my side, during the past week of my 12th American trip, I gave 4 lessons totaling about 15 hours for my 4 Cross-cultural and Comprehensive Art Workshops. Two of the earlier workshops lasted for 5 hours each, and the newest art workshop was held at an American church.

The most significant difference over the past week is that all participants in the third and fourth art workshops, held at OTC and the American church, were international students, American adults, and children, whereas the first and second workshops were almost entirely attended by Chinese Americans.


Therefore, I spent significantly more time refining my teaching methods and created many more PPT slides for the two new art workshops than I had for the first two workshops.

At OTC, for just the initial 30-40 minutes of theory lectures at the beginning of the lesson, I prepared 37 pages of PowerPoint slides. Then, even though the fourth art workshop was held only once, I created PPT slides to help participants read or sing a Chinese poem by following Chinese Pinyin, learn a few ancient Chinese characters by comparing them to modern Chinese styles, and listen to the music and singing of the poem that I had created and been published before they painted their first Chinese picture.






The good news is:

-- In the fourth art workshop at the American church, as people said goodbye to me and expressed hope for my return, some participants made donations to support the event. One of the organizers, Mrs. Faith Eastman, told me that "everyone enjoyed it." Meanwhile, we are now considering plans for next year's cooperation.


-- In the first art workshop at the Chinese Church, some attendees requested additional lessons, and a parent mentioned that her daughter unexpectedly recited Chinese poems at home. Additionally, a 92-year-old lady has been consistently studying with us, working diligently for about 3 hours in each session; some children and adults have already been attending the study for 9 weeks.

-- In the second art workshop, some people not only studied within their own group but also frequently joined the first group to study.

-- During Chinese New Year's Eve and Day, I received over 3,800 New Year's greetings from my professors, instructors, colleagues, family members, and friends. This added much warmth and significant support to my busy work during my twelfth trip to America in the cold winter. It also greatly encouraged my efforts in exploring and creating a unique “Cross-cultural and Comprehensive Art” with the aim of establishing a new, multidimensional art form in the field of art, while simultaneously developing a new discipline by integrating poetry, painting, music, and many other arts within the Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSSL) field.

What made me particularly happy was that these greetings included messages from people in New York, London, Sydney, Toronto, Beijing, Shanghai and other renowned international art capitals.

The bad news is:

- A promise made by someone in November 2024 to hold an exhibition for me during their university's 2025 Chinese New Year celebration event was just like a stone thrown into the sea.

- I have had a severe headache for two days and two nights since finishing my last job on Sunday night. However, it has mostly subsided thanks to strong painkillers. I am confident that I will be able to return to the classroom with full energy tomorrow.




How about you? Do you have anything special to share?
 

Sincerely, I am just a lifelong learner in the arts of painting, music, English, management and Chinese art teaching, and work on the website in my free time. I would really like to do something with what I have learned and make this website a little electronic bridge for cross-cultural and integrated/comprehensive art and Chinese language studying. This way, I can help others while improving myself.

Thank you always for your understanding, guidance and assistance and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to write to info@ebridge.cn .

Shirley Yiping Zhang
Feb 4, 2025