Hutong School Cultural Activities: Kite Making and La Mian

Whether you take part in our Internship Program or attend our Chinese classes, Hutong School organizes cultural activities several times a week for all its students and their friends. These events are the perfect opportunity to relax with friends, have some fun, find out more about Chinese culture and also spend some time with the Hutong School community.

Our cultural activities allow our students and interns to familiarize themselves with Chinese art, food and traditions to get a better overview of what makes this culture so unique.  The range of our activities is extremely wide, from learning how to play board games like Mahjong or Weiqi to Kungfu lessons, and from acrobatic shows to cooking lessons!

Kite making (zuò fēngzhēng – 做风筝)

We recently had the opportunity to attend a Kite making class. Kites were invented in China more than 1000 years ago, for military purposes during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).  They were later used as entertainment in various forms. They were initially made from silk but as they become more popular, were increasingly made out of paper. A certain kind of art was developed from kite making: the Chinese admired not only their visual beauty, but also the appearance of them floating across the sky.  They became popular gifts, and flying kites in China’s parks became a kind of sports activity. At Hutong School, we were lucky enough to be visited by a kite making master!  We created kites using bamboo sticks for the structure, glue and paper for the wings, colored paints for decoration.

When the master showed us the different steps required to make a kite we all thought: “no problem!” But as is often the case, the instructions looked way more simple than the actual craft! Some of us even glued our fingers together when we tried to paste the paper designs to the wood sticks. Fortunately, the master was very good humored, laughing as he walked around the room with a pair of scissors to snip off our incorrect knots. However, in the end we all managed to create pretty, colorful kites as you can see in the pictures of Hutong School.

Cooking La Mian (lāmiàn – 拉面)

Even though a lot of old Chinese traditions have now become extinct, the art of La Mian (hand-pulled noodles) is still alive today. The impressive technique of creating La Mian has been passed down from one generation to another. Chinese La Mian noodle pulling is performed by experts in traditional noodle houses. Noodle pullers spend several years  completely mastering the technique, but we had the chance to experience it for a couple of hours.

As is the case with all cooking lessons at Hutong School, The La Mian class was a lot of fun. The cooking classes are really popular among the students, so unsurprisingly, a large group of students attended this class as well. The master showed us how to pull noodles according to the tradition, but since we’re not yet noodle masters, this task was quite difficult.  Our noodles did not look particularly pretty, but at the very least, they were very tasty!

Luc Derouet
 Marketing Assistant