In golden autumn, osmanthus flowers are at their most fragrant, creating the perfect time for the First Golden Osmanthus Festival is at SUIS Qingpu! Autumn laurel is like gold, fragrant wherever it be and famous all over the world. The osmanthus trees on campus have a very pleasant aroma – with their tiny, beautiful flowers, the green trees are dotted with tender spots of yellow, enticing teachers and students together to shake the branches with osmanthus blooms! Golden osmanthus flowers fall one after another, with the silver-bell laughter of the students as a rich accompaniment, and the ‘rain’ of osmanthus flowers, a golden rain, spread it’s beauty and blessings.
The yellow flowers are not only attractive, but also contain a lot of untold knowledge! On campus, students were able to experience a closer encounter with osmanthus flowers by appreciating them, smelling them, and examining them. Meanwhile, teachers and students worked together to explore osmanthus blooms in different subjects.
Listen! Assistant Principal Ms. Helen is telling stories about osmanthus flowers! Since osmanthus and ‘being expensive’ are homonyms in Chinese, osmanthus means ‘being noble’ in traditional Chinese culture. So, osmanthus flowers would often be mentioned in ancient poems, and children in ancient times wrote these verses on paper fans and drew osmanthus flowers on bookmarks, making permanent their holiness and elegance on paper.
Fascinating Chang’e fairies are under the osmanthus tree at the Moon Palace, and so it is on our campus! Let’s fold an osmanthus flower and enjoy a wonderful dance on our fragrant campus.
It is widely acknowledged that Chinese love osmanthus, but what about in other cultures? Through a comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, English teachers helped students experience osmanthus blossoms in the eyes of people in other parts of the world. They found that osmanthus is also a symbol of beauty and purity in other cultures, and is often used for festive occasions such as weddings. Furthermore, students worked in small groups to inquire, creating eye-catching osmanthus-themed tableaux.
In class, Middle school and high school students learned about the differences between Chinese and Western osmanthus. After class, they took group photos under the osmanthus trees on campus wearing Han costumes, and designed their own osmanthus-themed mobile phone cases. In addition, they composed and played music about the golden osmanthus blossoms. (The background music is representative of the High-School students’ work!)
If desired, one can sun-dry the flowers and then, with the correct ‘know-how’, brew osmanthus honey and cook osmanthus rice balls, that is, if you wish to bring the harvest of the festival to your family as well. In addition, osmanthus can be made into tea to honour your grandparents, or into a cup of osmanthus latte to relax your parents after a long day of work. Or, when the holidays come, you can visit famous places and enjoy the calm and warmth that osmanthus brings.
