Dongcheng Children's Palace Concert

Ararat residents have, once again, been entertained to a free concert by the Dongcheng District Children's Palace troupe.

Prior to their concert they paid a visit to Gum San where they enjoyed gold panning.

Gold panning for fun

Getting ready for the performance

The teachers joined in the amusement

This time the entertainers were Primary school students with an average age of 10 years who sang and danced their way into our hearts. As with previous groups from this company, Ararat is the only provincial city to see these talented children perform. Usually these kinds of performances are strictly confined to the capital cities. We see them in Ararat because of our strong friendship links with China through Mr Tommy Xiang and AIMG Holdings operators of 3CW Chinese Radio.

Students and staff alike enjoyed their Gum San experience

Cr Marian received a scroll

The gift of a beautiful teaset for Gum San

Presentations were made by the Director of the Troupe to Mayor Andrea Marian for the Ararat Rural City and also to Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre.


 

Dance of "Paper Doll Cutting"

Chinese opera

A sheep like we have never seen before

Traditional dance with bells on it.

Did you have a fovourite? We invite comments.

Chinese Children to Entertain again

Mr Tommy Jiang, from 3CW radio, will once again bring a group of very talented Chinese children to entertain Ararat district residents with a free concert. We had a brilliant group from Beijing Number 2 High School give us an afternoon's entertainment of song and dance at the end of July.

Photo by Peter Pickering

The next group will be here on August 20 and will once again perform a free concert at the Ararat Performing Arts Centre. These children are from the Dongcheng Children's Palace and are younger than those who entertained us in July. Ararat is the only non-capital city where these children will perform and comes about through our special links with China. See the poster below for details.

Governor Pays a Visit

The Governor of Victoria The Honorourable Mr Alex Chernov and Mrs Chernov  visited Gum San on July 30. This was part of a two day tour of the municipality where they visited the Stan Kelly exhibition at Langi Morgala Museum, JWard, Langi Ghiran Winery and Greenvale Meats. They also joined members of the Ararat Islamic Welfare Association and community members in a friendship lunch.

New scrolls added to our collection

 The Ararat Chinese Heritage Society kindly donated three scrolls to Gum San.
The first beautiful scroll is a traditional painting of a cucumber vine and required mounting but now hangs on our wall.

 The second scroll is of a mountain scene in black and white. It depicts mountains with a stream running through the centre flanked by houses with a bridge crossing the stream. On the bridge a lady surveys the scenery while two men fish.










The third is a memorial scroll but at this stage we don't know who it was written to memorialize. This huge scroll also had to have mountings added before we could hang it.

 

This antique scroll was hanging in another part of the museum and has been moved to our scroll wall to hang. It is part of the Crabtree collection and depicts cranes nesting in a tree and represents life.
















The following four scrolls have been in storage for some time but are now back on display

Gold, gold, gold!

Local Ararat man Shane Clarke dropped into Gum San to give us a Chinese coin he had found near Norval Dam on one of his fossicking trips. These coins are not of any great significance but see what else he has been able to find.
Shane uses a 'state of the art' gold detector and is very experienced in its use. He travels all over the local goldfields tramping around the Ararat area as well as going to the well known areas around Maryborough and Talbot.

Left and clockwise starting from the top a 5.13 gram nugget found at Denicull Creek, next 8.13 grams also found at Denicull Creek, then 3.23 grams found at Blacksmith Gully near Amherst, followed by 10.22 grams found at Garden Gully Greek near Armstrongs and lastly 4.318 grams found near Armstrongs beyond Hard Hill. With the Australian dollar high against the US dollar these nuggets have a combined gold value of around AU$1500, but individual nuggets are often worth more as jewellery pieces than their actual gold value.

These 'bits and pieces' weigh 19.8 grams in total with each piece less than one gram. The gold in this lot is valued at today's rates at over AU$1000.
Drop in to Gum San and see our selection of maps of the goldfields - you too can find gold. John Gladdis from  the Coiltek Gold Centre in Maryborough, and a supporter and donor to Gum San, can help you out with the hire of gold detecting equipment.

Visitors from Yiwu

A visiting delegation from our Friendship City Yiwu visited Ararat on July 20 and 21. The delegation, led by the Yiwu Municipal People's Government Vice Mayor Mr Fu Chunming,  visited GWM Water because one of the delegation is deputy director of the Yiwu Bureau of Water Affairs, to Gum San, shared dinner with Councillors on July 20, and visited a local farm on July 21 before returning to Melbourne before continuing their brief visit to Australia. Deputy Mayor Mr John Cunningham welcomed the visitors. Mr Fu responded and told everyone present how impressed he was with Ararat and surrounds. As with all Chinese delegations, he was impressed with the purity of the ecology of our area. Gifts were exchanged and Ararat was given the magnificent pen holder shown below. This is on display at Gum San.

Donation to Gum San

Thank you to Mrs Isabelle Costello who has made a generous donation of a traditional Chinese lantern to Gum San. Isabelle has been a long time member of the Ararat Chinese Heritage Society and was previously a volunteer at Gum San

Traditional Chinese Lantern at Gum San