Six students currently being hosted in Kedah Chapter were guests at an annual Chinese Calligraphy Competition and Cultural Festival organized by SMJK Sin Min, a top government-aided Chinese school in Sungai Patani in conjunction with the Lunar New Year recently.

The six students, Tommaso Barbato, Michele Orru, Claudia de Fortis Nadi, Katherine Higgins, Ava Perko and Josephine Williams, three each from Italy and United States respectively, watched three Calligraphy masters demonstrate their prowess with their brushes at Sin Min Secondary School before the contest proper began with more than a hundred high school students taking part.

Together with Board Chair Khalilah Talha and Antarabudaya Malaysia staff who were on a Kedah Chapter visit, they were given a grand tour of the school and its new wing which was wholly funded by the school’s alumni. The new four storeys high building houses state-of-the-art equipment for educational purposes, a rehearsal room for the school orchestra and a printing room with high quality 3D printing equipment.

They also took part in a massive prosperity toss that included all guests and the entire school faculty. The exchange students later were seen posing for photographs with the school children and exchanging phone numbers. The school principal, Madam Li Lee Ching, also gave baskets of oranges and ang pow packets to the students as a gesture of welcome and appreciation for their presence.

Host students posing with their Ang Pow packets and basket of oranges courtesy of the school principal, Madam Li Lee Ching
Loushang waiting to be tossed with the large size chopsticks!
Italian students thrilled with the 3D objects printed by the school’s Art Club
Guests at the school’s Lunar Festival posed in front of the colourful rabbit signifying the Year of Rabbit
One of the calligraphy masters explaining about brush technics to the students
The students holding up their finished calligraphy works
Listening and watching intensely as a calligraphy master shows off his skill