2021.01.25

Governmental Records of the Two Sessions: The Field Has Seen the Blossom of Aesthetic Education Flowers

Mr. Shum Chiu Hung, deputy to the People’s Congress of Guangdong Province: Let the Children from Rural Areas Experience Art

From Southcn.com (reporter - Xu Mengmeng; photographer - Zhang Qida): On a fresh and sunny winter morning, there were laughter and talks from the space between the central theater stage and the ancestral hall of Fengyang Village, Fengyang Town, Lianzhou City, Qingyuan. Present were numerous children, who were engaged in an outdoor art class. The group included students from grade 5, class 1 at Fengyang Town Central School. Amid the warm sunlight and gentle breeze, after listening carefully to the volunteer teachers, the kids set the imagination free to create their own Qi Opera faces by applying strokes to the plain, white masks.

The scene was typical of the aesthetic education classes given at Fengyang Town Central School. Moreover, it was closely aligned with the original intention of Mr. Shum Chiu Hung, deputy to the People’s Congress of Guangdong Province and founder of the Times Foundation, as he initiated the Field Blossom project to let children in rural areas experience the wonders of art.

It was Mr. Shum's belief that, as a deputy to the People’s Congress of Guangdong Province, it was his responsibility to consider people’s well-being and contribute to the development of society. “The rural revitalization strategy was put forward in the Report to the 19th CPC National Congress. Since then, I've given a great deal of thought to what I could bring to that strategy,” he explained.

General Secretary Xi penned a letter to eight senior professors from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in August 2018. In the letter, he illuminated the direction for the development of China's fine-arts education in a new era: “As an important part of the aesthetic education, the fine arts play an important role in forming hearts of gold… To ensure satisfactory aesthetic education, it is necessary to teach with proper ethics, which are rooted in the daily life. To follow the characteristics of aesthetic education, we must carry forward the spirit of Chinese aesthetic education and nurture the future generations physically and mentally.” General Secretary Xi’s words drew extensive attention from society.

Through on-site surveys, Mr. Shum Chiu Hung, deputy to the People’s Congress of Guangdong Province, concluded that aesthetic education in rural areas lagged behind the more fully developed basic education. Thus, the idea of doing something for aesthetic education in rural areas came to Mr. Shum’s mind.

In September 2018, the Field Blossom project was officially launched. As a nonprofit project, it bore the aim to “improve aesthetic education in rural areas with kindness from society.” The project has integrated both the education service and the space renovation as its model. To improve the teaching resources and hardware facilities, Times Foundation regularly dispatched volunteer teachers of similar expertise to such rural areas, in addition to which it provided professional training for local teachers of aesthetic education. As a result, more children in rural areas have benefited from the work of the project. Materials, funds and labor have also been invested in the Field Blossom project, the mission of which is to renovate the art classrooms and provide children with more diverse spaces for aesthetic education.

Mr. Shum Chiu Hung has long believed there is no distinction among children when it comes imagination and the desire for beauty, regardless of whether they're from the urban or rural areas. Aesthetic education gives kids the chance to experience the happiness of creative effort and companionship, and it teaches them how to express their feelings. Thus, as long as there are relevant needs from children in rural areas, Mr. Shum and the Times Foundation will "allocate resources, forge ahead regardless of the difficulties, and persist in the undertaking."

The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in late 2019 brought new challenges to the Field Blossom project. Eventually, as offline teaching became unavailable, Mr. Shum and the Times Foundation adjusted the work direction and relocated resources to online training. Additionally, the multifunctional classrooms were renovated according to feedback from teachers and children.

The Field Blossom project has been extended to 14 cities in Guangdong Province and several cities in other provinces. As a result, more than 20,000 aesthetic education lessons have been given. Offline and online professional training programs have been provided for 15,000 local teachers of music, fine arts and physical education. In fact, more than 400,000 students have benefited from the program.

The year 2021 will mark the implementation of the rural revitalization plan. Today, January 24, has witnessed the opening of the Fourth Session of the Thirteenth People's Congress of Guangdong Province. The government’s work report mentioned that it is necessary to promote rural revitalization in order to attain “notable results in five years and fundamental change in ten years' time.” In recent years, Guangdong has successively initiated the Plan for Extensive Aesthetic Education Action as well as the identification of provincial-level rural schools in art-education experimental counties and provincial-level characteristic art education schools. Accordingly, it has included aesthetic education into the scope of promotion of modern education in the province. Nevertheless, society must work as one to fill the gap in aesthetic education. As Mr. Shum put it, with the Field Blossom project more people from different walks of life can join the effort and bring more attention to aesthetic education in rural areas. Doing so will help local children.

Co-presented by Southcn.com and www.gdrd.cn

Overall organization: Zhang Chunqing

Planning: Nianqing Shenchen

Coordination: Zhang Junwei

Script/interview: Xu Mengmeng

Production: Zhang Qida, Xu Mengmeng

Design: Wu Junli (The copyright of the logo is reserved for Times Foundation.)