568 middle school students celebrate a rite of passage

The students offered songs and expressed their gratitude towards the teachers and other staff. When a slideshow of the faculty was shown, enthusiastic applause burst out from the students.

Honored alumni members gave speeches at the ceremony, including calligrapher Liu Tieping, who is a master of pre-Qin Dynasty Chinese characters. Liu wrote four words meaning love, respect, honesty, and fraternity in seal characters as a gift to the students. The four words are the core value requirements for a citizen to meet regarding Chinese socialism.

Liu Tieping, a master of pre-Qin Dynasty Chinese characters, offers the students a calligraphy work of four words meaning love, respect, honesty, and fraternity in seal characters. [Photo by Liu Sitong/China Daily]

This Qingshan middle school was founded as a cram school in 1953, and then evolved from there to today’s status as one of Jiangsu province’s key senior middle schools, with a four-star rating.

The school moved to the foot of Huishan Mountain in the northwest of Wuxi in 2009, with the ancient canal running to the east, offering an inspiring environment for students and teachers, reminiscent of many famous ancient academies, such as Yuelu Academy by Yuelu Mountain in Hunan and Songyang Academy by Songshan Mountain in Henan.

Jiangsu province has been attaching great importance to the “four ceremonies” – primary school admission at the age of seven, celebration of progress at the age of 10, arrival of puberty at the age of 14, and rite of passage at the age of 18 - as part of afterschool youth education. It launched a design contest to collect designs for the four ceremonies in early 2016 and the winning pieces for each of the four ceremonies were included at the rite of passage event at the middle school.

Students model the rite of passage gowns for the Jiangsu provincial ceremonial gown contest. Qingshan middle school chose this look for their students’ rite of passage ceremony this year. [Photo by Liu Sitong/China Daily] Another winning design for the rite of passage gown for Jiangsu provincial ceremonial gown contest. [Photo by Liu Sitong/China Daily]