Dragons and Lions

Hey loves!

Our school's Chinese Cultural Evening was this Saturday and the performances were impressive. The Chinese Cultural Evening is traditionally the final cultural evening of the school year and it happens every year (in contrast to all other cultural evenings which happen every two years). Given that it was this cultural evening took place only one week after our mock exams, I was surprised to see so many second years involved in it. The second years dragon and lion dance teams took their skills to a new level during their performances and the whole audience could not believe how amazing their performances were.

Seeing so many of my peers involved in this cultural evening reminded me once again of his special LPC is - people here just genuinely want to get involved. No matter how many exams we have, students always find time to engage with the community. The performances of this cultural evening showcased this commitment of the student body because you could tell that hard practice was required to make these performances happen.

This cultural evening's theme was the Olympics. The students presented the harsh training that young Chinese athletes have to undergo and different reasons for joining the Chinese team. They also explored what happens to athletes in China when their career ends either due to age or due to an injury. I have never looked into athletes' lives before which is why I found it quite interesting to learn more about it through this cultural evening.

Now we only have one week of school left and then we will all go on Project Week. Like last year, I will be working with the Verbatim theatre group. Verbatim is a theatre style where you interview people and perform them on stage using their exact words. Last year, we focused on asylum seekers in Hong Kong and this year, we will be focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community in Hong Kong. I believe that this play will be very interesting for all of us since we have many students on campus who identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community. We will perform our play on March 9 in the Fringe Club at 7.30pm. The following week, we will be performing our play at our school on Friday. If you would like to join us at the Fringe Club, you can reserve your ticket here. Tickets are free but we ask for a 100 HKD donation. We decided to call the play "Clocked and Closeted" because these two words are part of LGBTQIA+ slang. When you get clocked, it means that you get recognised as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (no matter whether you openly identified yourself as one or whether someone just realised without you telling them). And being closeted means not having come out yet. Right now, I cannot yet imagine our play but I am excited to learn more about being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community in Hong Kong and to perform peoples' stories on stage.

Lots of Love,

Elena