Students stage cultural show to promote tourism in China

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
SIXTEEN Papua New Guineans students studying in China staged a cultural show to promote the country’s tourism industry.
The students attending the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics staged the show when asked by the College of International Education Centre Group to showcase PNG’s culture and tradition as it is the college’s yearly custom to promote cultures of other global communities attending the institution.
“The very aim or the idea behind it was to let the international community know and feel a glimpse of our cultures and tradition from our one and only God-given country PNG,” said Nanjing PNG students’ association vice-president Ricky Mana.
He said CIEG chose PNG to be the hosting country at the college under the theme ‘Sanap Wantaim Yu’ (standing together with you) to give the chance for participating students from other countries to experience the amazing culture of the country in the form of entertainment.
“We showcased some of our cultures, languages, food and other unique aspects of this exquisite country,” Mana said.
He said all 16 of them wore colourful and traditional costumes of their cultural origin and had their traditional face paintings which showed the uniqueness of the respective cultural provinces of PNG.
“Apart from the presentations, the whole place was decorated with beautiful PNG souvenir and delicious foods cooked in PNG styles.
He said the interesting things that caught the people’s attention were information that they displayed about the country and its 856 different languages and tribes: Sir Michael Somare the longest serving politicians who led the Independence and still alive, Sir Julius Chan the architect of PNG currency – the name Chan looks familiar to all Chinese – the unique culture of the Sepik people with crocodile cuts on their skins, the unique culture of the Asaro mudmen from the Eastern Highlands, PNG’s independence in 1975 without bloodshed, the unique life style of people from the highlands to the costal and the islands, forest and sea without money and the beautiful land scape of PNG.
“Everyone who attended really enjoy learning more about our country and had the chance to taste real PNG food, the tolai aigir and the coconut-creamed food,” he said.
Mana, 23, from Enga in Wapenamanda district, is doing his second-year in aeronautical engineering.
He said there were 30 PNG students studying in Nanjing in the Jiangsu province of China.
“The other 14, who come through the Chinese government scholarship were studying in other universities and 16 of them were all self-sponsored students,” Mana said.
He said those 14 also turned up at the event to show their support and promote PNG.