The touring exhibition, "Mali Mali Palace", is an education activity which allows the entire school participate. Through using 2D and 3D displays, games, interactive activities, teachers and students will explore interesting stories hidden in the Palace. On the other side, catering to different circumstances from different institutions, guided-tours or workshops will take place at the venue. Via this activity, we try to link up Chinese culture with different school subjects, encouraging students to participate in different kinds of extended learning activities and, in the end, share the results with their family members at home.

The Forbidden City has survived for six hundred years with minimal damage. It is the largest wooden architectural complex in the world. Let’s "travel" with all the teachers and students to the Forbidden City, going through different stories related to Chinese architecture, imperial members, and ornaments. Now, we sincerely invite you to "cast a spell" and enter the Palace with us!

The 1st round of application has finished.  Thanks very much for your previous supports. In order to allow more schools to join in, we currently allocate additional time slots of exhibition for new applications. 

Please click here download the application form.

Please click to view the latest schedule of the activity.

The CnC members made a visit to Children's NPM Digital Playground Exhibition held by National Palace Museum Taiwan, studying the display format and technique on different antiquities.

Starting from December, a brand new workshop, "1001 Chinese Objects", has taken placed in schools. Based on the topics: tea, chair, bowl and chopsticks, the team leads students exploring and appreciating the values behind the objects through their five senses. In fact, the everyday objects are like our teachers. While using them, we are actually learning the attitudes to communicate with others.

The CnC members, together with the team members of Chivalry Creative Tainan, visited a bamboo craft workshop held by the bamboo craft artist, Ms Lu Ching-chih. Combining her experiences and passion towards bamboo craft with creative notions, Ms Lu Ching-chih made the traditional bamboo craft become more recognized in overseas.

Thereafter, the CnC members went for a visit at Bamboo Craft Museum Natou in order to learn how the bamboo craft connects to our everyday lives. 

 “Yizhen” (Parade Fomation) is a Taiwanese folk performance art demanding on performers’ skills and techniques. It is often being held during the ceremony of worship or thanksgiving. The professor of National Taitung University – Chinese Folk Arts and Sports, Mr. Wu Teng-ta, has trained up a lot of “Yizhen” teams for overseas performances and fully understood the “Yizhen” culture in Taiwan.  Through his in-depth explanations, the CnC members got further understanding on this Taiwanese traditional folk custom.

The CnC members and the team members of Chivalry Creative Tainan visited a traditional face painting worshop - “Ji Ho Tang” in Jiali district, Tainan for attending a demonstration session of “pat-ka-tsiòng” face painting.  The head of Education (CnC) Ma Kin-chung was invited to participate in it.  Through experiencing the sophisticated skills of the painter, Mr. Ma perceived a feeling of solemnity during the process of being painted.  As each face painting style did have its own meanings, the team tried to explore further developments based on different face paintings.

To understand the development of cultural and creative property and the aspect of culture promotion in Taiwan, Chiu Kwong-chiu, the director of CnC, together with the other CnC members, visited the team in Chivalry Creative Tainan. In meanwhile, not only did they share their experiences in promoting art and culture each other but also explored the possibility of collaborations in the future. The Chivalry Creative Tainan has conducted various guided tours on different formats or themes and expected, with cultural and creative spirits, to explore different living facets in the city.

Mr. Wan Hao-yi led the CnC members to the first Confucian temple in Taiwan, called Tainan Confucius Temple, providing an in-depth explanation about the historical stories of the temple.

The Symbol of Modern Leaders Design Competition, co-organized by the education programme and Henrietta Secondary School, has been completed. Obtained 220 votes from all the students and teachers in school, a symbol design, designed by the student Lee Chung Yan Joanna in class 2D, was picked as the most favorite design among all. Not only did the winner receive the book In the Forbidden City as a prize presented by the principal Ma Yuen Fat but all the other participants also got a certificate from the Education Programme respectively. For more details about the activity, please be aware of our coming news!

Starting from December 2014, the workshop – the Best Palace from "the Forbidden City Children's Programme" (FCCP) has launched at 3 different campuses of the Primary School of Capital Normal University respectively. Each teacher has spent over a month time on rehearsal and now is ready to share his/her interests in traditional culture to students.  Take a look! A teacher dressed up like Kuai Xiang (蒯祥), a famous artisan in Ming dynasty, exploring inspirations about architecture from the nature. 

"The Forbidden City Children's Programme" (FCCP) will be launched at the Primary School of Capital Normal University soon.  It is the 2nd cooperating education organization in Beijing the team has worked with. There are 12 school teachers now preparing the workshops.  Starting from September, with assistance of our Beijing teammates, the school teachers have been learning the teaching plans of the programme and visited the Forbidden City together in order to deepen the experience and understanding of the palace as well as our plans.  The rehearsals are actively in progress and 12 teachers have also visited another local school, the Experimental Primary School of RDFZ, in which the workshops were running, for class observation.

Once the teachers are ready, catering to 120 participating grade 3 students, FCCP will take place at 3 different campuses of the Primary School of Capital Normal University.

Apart from the palace and garden, Chinese objects is the latest theme being introduced by the team. In the coming December, a new workshop, '1001 Chinese Objects' , will take place in schools. We will guide students to explore some ordinary, everyday objects that accompanied Chinese people for a long time and reveal the extraordinary stories behind them. 

If you want to know more about what will be introduced in the workshop, please be alert to our latest news!

The Symbol of Modern Leaders Design Competition is co-organized by the education programme and Henrietta Secondary School. During the workshop, inspired by the 12 imperial symbols, students realized more about commoners’ expectations to their emperors and grew more awareness about the relationships between leaders and the general public, freedom and restriction. They then designed a new symbol to express their expectations to leaders in the future. By the end of November, we will elect a symbol, which best represent the good moral character of a leader, by all the students and teachers in school.

The latest phase of “Strolling in the Imperial Garden” will include more dynamic activities. Through a rather relaxing approach, we expect to lead students to some delicate gardens, exploring how the ancient Chinese exerted their endless creativity within a limited space.

At the invitation of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (School of Design), the head of education (CnC) Ma Kin-Chung shared his delight in promoting Chinese culture via design to the students. By the personal experience being fond of Chinese culture, Mr. Ma encouraged the students to approach and study their research subjects from different perspectives in hopes of deepening the experience. Based on various achievements the CnC and education team accomplished, Mr. Ma demonstrated different attempts in design catering to different target audience. As the students will go for a study tour to Xi'an, through this opportunity, they raised certain issues they may encounter during the trip; at the same time, they felt interested in knowing more about the historical and cultural background of the works from the CnC.

Starting in the new semester, The Experimental Primary School of RDFZ has included the Forbidden City Children’s Programme (FCCP) in their school curriculum, and expanded the class size from a chosen few to the whole P2, totaled 168 students. Meanwhile, more teachers have taken part in the programme, together with the students they will explore the fascinating Chinese culture.

To share the delights of learning traditional Chinese culture with local audience in Singapore, our tutors have held several workshops with over 100 multi-racial students at the Chinese International School and a group of young readers at the Singapore Press Holdings Limited center respectively.

After a series of study tours and experience workshops in Beijing, Guangzhou and Taiwan, in September 2014, the team flied to another city – Singapore, to reach out the local children, parents and education institutions and explore opportunities and potential development over there.

Although the Chinese accounted for about three quarters of the population in Singapore, most household members there hardly communicate in Chinese at home. The promotion of Chinese language and culture is getting more and more emphasized by local government, schools and media.

During the tour, the team visited museums including Peranakan Museum, National Museum of Singapore and Singapore Art Museum, learning not simply the local history, customs and culture of Singapore, but also looking for new perspectives on thematic concept development and exhibition display format.

Besides the loyal audience - students and adult visitors, the museums also aim to educate another new target group – young parents and their children.  Meanwhile, to stimulate young children’s curious and imaginative mind, and encourage them to explore more in daily lives, the National Museum of Singapore especially founded a children zone called PLAY in the museum.

We All Live in The Forbidden City starts speaking in different languages!

Chinese Architecture: A Suite Inspired by Nature has been translated into a Korean-lauguage edition called World's Most Affable Story of Chinese Architecture and published in Korea this September. The Department of Architecture in Hanyang University has chosen it as one of teaching materials in school.

In October 2014, the English-language edition of the books, This is the Greatest Place! The Forbidden City and the World of Small Animals and In the Forbidden City have been launched. Along with the event of book release, a series of promotion and education activities will be held at the same time.

Please click here for more information about We All Live in Forbidden City book series.

The programme director (Foundation) Wong Mei-yee, together with the head of education (CnC) Ma Kin-Chung and the project manager of China Institute Michael Buening, visited the White Plains Middle School for exchanging views and experiences on culture promotion. The teachers there suggested that today learning Chinese is a trend in the US and their school does offer the related courses to the students.  Once the members of Global Ambassadors in school realized the English-language edition of our publication will be released, they particularly invited Michael Buening for an interview to talk about it.

Please visit the following address for more interview details:-

http://www.wphsambassadors.org/react-news/summer-media-workshop-episodes/the-forbidden-city/

The programme director (RHFF) Wong Mei-yee, and the head of education (CnC) Ma Kin-Chung made a visit to an exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum called "The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China's Emperors exhibition", presented by the ROM and Beijing’s Palace Museum, and sponsored by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, to get to know more about what the role the museum is playing in term of education and how it connects to schools and local communities.

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation and the Design and Cultural Studies Workshop have been collaborating with China Institute, a nonprofit educational and cultural institution in New York City, to gear up the publication and education development of We All Live in The Forbidden City Education Programme in North America. Along with the English-language edition of the books, “A Palace Inspired by the World of Small Animals” and “In the Forbidden City”, launched, a series of promotion and education activities have been held at the same time. We look forward to connecting the local children in North America to the traditional Chinese culture and let them find out their interests with us.

Over the past year, the Forbidden City Children' s Programme has conducted 2 series of thematic workshops “The Best Palace” and “Strolling in the Imperial Garden” at the Experimental Primary School of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China respectively. In the coming academic year, the entire grade of students will participate in the activities; at the same time, more teachers will take up the teaching role in the workshops. In the middle of June, school teachers, together with the education team from Hong Kong, have gone for a study tour at the Forbidden City, enriching their understanding of the programme themes and recalling their memories of the palace.

The Forbidden City Children’s Programme (FCCP) made its appearance in the Experimental Primary School of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China in Beijing on 12 June 2014. Sharing its visions with educators, teachers and students in the capital city, the FCCP sought to achieve the objectives of enhancing and developing the ‘We All Live in the Forbidden City’ Education Programme’ for more students to benefit by harnessing the insights of experts present at the event. The day, packed with a rich display of programme materials, teaching methodologies and group photos, was capped off with the presentation of the We All Live in The Forbidden City book series by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. The education programme will be reaching even more students with wider impact, having earned the recognition of not only distinguished guests and parents alike but also great interest of representatives from local schools who came to observe the event.

The Beijing team of The Forbidden City Children’s Programme came away with new insight into various aspects of the education system of Hong Kong from sitting in on the sessions of Through Our Eyes Photography Education Programme and Leap! Body Movement programme organised by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, followed by a visit to Chiu Sheung School, Hong Kong on 17 January. The team also learned from their Hong Kong counterparts the similarities and differences in teaching pedagogies and learning styles of the two places.

In search of inspiration for the Beijing edition of the ‘Strolling in the Imperial Garden’ thematic workshop, on 13 January, the host team took their Beijing counterpart on a visit to the Kowloon Walled City Park and Nan Lian Garden, both paying homage to the philosophy and principles of traditional Chinese gardens.