Kia ora, nĭ hăo, hola, namaste, konnichi wa, selamat siang, xin chào, talofa.
We celebrated Festival of Cultures Day on 11 June. A food market, a special lunch and wonderful performances, made the day a true celebration of cultural diversity and promoted global knowledge.
We started the day with a House Mural Competition where each house randomly drew a country’s name out of a hat and worked with its members on a mural to showcase the culture of that country. Wallingford focused on France; Tauroa – New Zealand; Rouncil – Japan; and Frimley – Spain. The four murals were proudly hung in the hall for SLT’s judging and students’ popular candy votes. Judges announced Frimley – Spain as the winning house with points going towards the house cup. The student’s choice went to Rouncil – Japan.
With the edgy theme of Technology and Inventions, it was a great opportunity for staff and students to learn about what different cultures have contributed to the world to make our life better. Nine display stalls were situated in the hall with information boards and presentation on inventions and technologies of different cultures including: Kiwi, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, English, Australian, German, and French.
It was also very important that we got to showcase talents, share our knowledge and experience with others. Thirteen groups of amazing performers brought to the stage so much flavour and depth, opening our eyes to different aspects of their cultures from Indian, Irish, Maori, to Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. We were treated to a special song, sung beautifully in both Chinese Mandarin and Japanese, demonstrating the beauty of cross-cultural collaboration.
Last but not least, no festival of cultures could succeed with international food flavours. This year, our year 10 food technology class under Ms. Williams’s direction provided mouth-watering food samples from Italian, Chinese and Japanese cuisine at interval on Friday. The kitchen under the new chef Stephen rose to the occasion and wooed us with a week of top cultural foods from Japan, Vietnam, England, Mexico, Italy, India and China.
