After a few months’ preparation, the Peking Opera Mask Painting Festivity, which was sponsored by the Confucius Institute at Bangor University, was inaugurated at Pontio shop on February 1, 2014, for the celebration of the Chinese New Year. The Pontio shop was a famous culture institution in Bangor’s downtown area. Before the commencement of the activity, there were already several people waiting outside the venue. This festivity lasted about three hours. Even when there were only five minutes left, a few people still came in to ask the permission to join in that joyous game. Seven or eight groups of people (about 80 persons) participated in that light-hearted activity. All were very enthusiastic about it.

It was always difficult to organize an activity opening for public attendance because the number of the attendees and their ages was unknown and hard to estimate. The faculty of the Confucius Institute had made full preparation for that event by carrying out multiple jobs, such as doing marketing promotion, collecting Peking Opera face painting masks, drafting the explanations for various kinds of face painting masks, preparing some samples for the planned paintings, purchasing and transporting of white masks, as well as the acquired pigments and paintbrushes. During the Spring Festival, teachers gave up their spare time to organize this activity. They were as busy as bees to explain the meaning of those facial paintings to the locals and instruct them how to paint, how to prepare tools and how to paint according to the sample designs. Beside that, they also kindly guide the parents to sign the license files for photo permission for their kids. Participants usually came with the whole family. While some adults, fans of the Peking Opera painting mask came alone. The completed works by children generally demonstrated the flavors of stream of consciousness; whereas adult attendees were more likely to choose small size masks to paint on. The participants painted all details elaborately and painstakingly. Some of them even added western styles and hues to the original designs.

This activity was a part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. The description of it was compiled and published in a picture album named “2014 Spring Activities”, which is an influential local publicity material sponsored by Pontio shop. Relevant activities had been circulated among locals for half a year. It was a great help to boost the notability of the Confucius Institute, and also a chance to enrich the serial celebrations for Chinese Spring Festival.

The locals enthusiastically participated in this activity. They even wanted to join in within the last five minutes before the event ended.

Ms. Meng Yu was explaining the meanings of a Peking Opera face painting mask.

The two organizers of this event: Prof. Zhang, Liying, co-director of the Confucius Institute, who designed the content of the festivity and purchased all kinds of white masks from China, and Marketing Officer Vicky, who did the marketing promotion.

A local senior carefully studied the Peking Opera mask.

Adult participants preferred to choose small masks and painted them elaborately.

Masks painted by children were colorful with their imagination running free.

People participated in the activity usually came with their family.

Some finished masks demonstrate western hues and flavors.

A group photo for the first team of participants who had finished their mask painting.