Today, I had the great opportunity to take part in the International Children’s Day celebration in a Chinese kindergarten in Xiamen South Eastern China. The evening before, we gave presents to the children. We brought some LEGO, which is very rare and expensive here. It turns out to be a good choice.
Today, we went to the kindergarten, where I was introduced by my niece to other parents with:
"This is my uncle, he is a foreigner"
Which was not a big suprise for the other parents, because of my western skin, hair, eyes, etc. Then, the kids started a little show, including dancing, singing etc. But I was quite suprised, that they are dancing to a German song “Da hat das rote Pferd sich einfach umgedreht”
Afterwards, the children started to play different games. They could take part at different stations and fill their score card. Very interesing was, how some parents eagerly helped and solve the tasks for them. And of course, every move of the kid was documented by several video cell phone cameras (not so different in Europe nowadays I think).
Visitors of China already know that the capitalism here is much stronger than in several western countries. There is a lot of advertisment and money drives everything. Therefore, also a kindergarten is no exception, e.g. Angry Birds is a huge topic here right know, as you can see at the children’s hat:
PS: No Mao, no communist song or else stereotype things have been seen.