ISP News

Welcome back girls! We are so proud to see how quickly you have adapted through the lockdown 4.0. We are happy to share that even though with the gathering restriction, we have managed to organise some celebration events with our girls this month. 

Badminton Competition 

Badminton is hugely popular in Asian community. Our ISP girls were having so much fun participating this sport event with other students from Brunswick Secondary College and University High School.

Dragon Boat Festival 

Our usual Dragon Boat festival couldn’t be celebrated properly, but we hope that our international students still enjoyed your take-away traditional Zong zi treat – Sticky rice dumpling. 

For those who are not aware of the Dragon Boat Festival, it is a traditional and important festival in China. The festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. It commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a devote scholar, poet, and loyal royal minister, However, his political views were not supported by the emperor, which result in a war. After receiving news that his kingdom had been defeated in battle, he became despondent, ultimately throwing himself into a river where he subsequently drowned. Once his supporters heard of his apparent suicide, the local people rushed out in the long boats hoping to rescue him. When they realized they were too late, they began to beat heavy drums in hopes of scaring the fish away. They also threw Zong zi in hopes the fish would not eat away at Yuan's body. 

The zong zi is a glutinous rice ball with a filling and wrapped in corn leaves. The fillings can be egg, beans, dates, fruits, sweet potato, walnuts, mushrooms, meat, or a combination of them. They are generally steamed. The Dragon Boat Festival is a celebration where many eat rice dumplings (zongzi), drink realgar wine, and race dragon boats. Other activities include hanging icons of Zhong Kui (a mythic guardian figure), hanging mugwort and calamus, taking long walks, writing spells, and wearing perfumed medicine bags.

Due to the influence of Chinese culture, many countries in Asian like South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan also have Dragon Boat Festival celebrations. Moreover, the festival was introduced to Europe and America by Chinese immigrants and people there also celebrate the festival, mainly with dragon boat races.

Wish you are having a healthy Dragon Boat Festival this year!

18th birthday celebration 

Happy 18th birthday to our 4 fabulous girls Ray LING, Stacy NGUYEN, Echo TIAN and Mandy YANG. Again, it was a shame not to be able to throw a big celebration with our girls this term due to the restriction, but we hope you enjoyed the special birthday cakes with your friends and homestay families. Finger crossed things are going well and we’ll be able to celebrate the usual 18th birthday event next term.