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