Welcome Spring in the Name of Love

What is love？

Essentially, there is only one word for love in both English and Chinese, and that is “爱，love”.

In Chinese, the word “love” can mean compassion, pity, fondness, respect, friendship, cherish, favour, fraternity, etc…….

A very long time ago, the ancient Greeks had at least nine different words for “love”. They believed that since each kind of love was unique, each kind of love should have its own word to describe it.

For example:

Philía – the love between friends

Storgē – the love between you and your parents, grandparents, or siblings

Philautía – the love you have for yourself

What kind of love is embodied in our upcoming “Happy Spring with Love” charity event? In today’s flag-raising ceremony, Principal Adam revealed the answer.

It is the kind of love called agápē.

In the fourth century, agápē was translated into the Latin word caritas, which is the origin of our word “charity”.

Agápē is selfless love, unconditional love. It is the least selfish form of love because we expect nothing in return.

A society without agápē would not be able to function because we depend on each other. Agápē is not only good for the recipient, it is good for our well-being and enhances our love for ourselves.

Looking back on last year, because of everyone’s agápē love, we were able to send much needed resources to our sister schools in Yunnan Province. Our principals travelled to two different schools in Yunnan, volunteered to teach, and brought everyone’s donations to the students and schools there. Our student volunteers, dressed in colourful and gorgeous traditional Yunnan costumes, did their wonderful part by promoting the sale of oranges the fruit farmers in Yunnan grow.

At the flag-raising ceremony, this lovely group of volunteers sang a song to call on everyone to join in the action of agápē. As the lyrics of “We+” say, “We warmly accompany each other. We walk together all the way. This is the extraordinary power of millions of friends. A little starlight along the way can illuminate.”

Thank you to the hosts of the flag-raising ceremony, Ms. Ren Yuanbing and Mr. Ozzy, the foreign teachers from the Primary Division, and the special guests of the event – the children from our Fortune Kindergarten.

Let us act to show our agápē! We believe that we can all enjoy the fun brought to us by this charity event while giving love at the same time!