Country for PR: China
Contributor: Xinhua News Agency
Wednesday, December 27 2023 - 19:04
AsiaNet
Poetry festival in mountains reveals local children's sparkling talents
SHANGHAI, Dec. 27, 2023 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/--

On a meadow of Paradise Mountain at an altitude of 2,400 meters stands a 
luminous boulder. Stepping into the boulder and looking up, one would see an 
inner wall engraved with children's poems.

On Dec. 23, China UnionPay, the world's top bank card organization, joined 
hands with the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation and a rural poetry education 
public welfare organization to put on a poetry festival in the mountains in 
Mangshui Town, Changning County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. The event 
was livestreamed online to showcase local children' talents, as well as the 
charm of Chinese poetry and the goodwill of the Chinese people.

At the event, the children poets read and shared their poems, and sang 
poem-related songs. Besides, some unique local intangible cultural heritage 
performances were also staged, creating rounds of climax during the festival, 
which has attracted more than 30 million online viewers. 

In the luminous boulder, people can get a POS receipt printed with several 
children's poems by donating 1 yuan at the UnionPay Poetry POS, and all 
proceeds will be donated to the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation.

This event has also attracted the attention and support of many famous people 
at home and abroad, such as Olympic sailing champion Xu Lijia, Jake Pinnick, an 
American who has been practicing martial arts for more than ten years, and 
media professional and online celebrity Andy Boreham, who read these children's 
poems in a passionate manner to support the festival.

China UnionPay Poetry POS campaign was officially launched in July 2019. Over 
the past five years, the campaign has entered more than 400 schools in 
mountainous regions in Anhui, Henan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Yunnan and other 
places. 

More than 100 poetry classes (cross-school combined classes) have been 
organized, helping more than 7,000 local children receive artistic literacy 
education. In addition, the campaign has collected over 6,000 poems, and 
published a collection titled Little Poets in the Mountains. The first UnionPay 
public welfare library and 114 public welfare book corners have been put into 
use in Jinzhai, east China's Anhui Province.

Source: China UnionPay

Image Attachments Links:

   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=443866

   Caption: On Dec. 23, China UnionPay, joined hands with the China Soong Ching 
Ling Foundation and a rural poetry education public welfare organization to put 
on a poetry festival in the mountains in Mangshui Town, Yunnan Province.

Attachments
poetry festival.jpg