Tuesday 20 Nov 2018 08:27am

On Wednesday 14th November Year 2 were visited by Chinese comic book artist Li Kunwu and his son Lufei. Li Kunwu is from Yunnan province in southwest China and has published comic books telling stories about his home province, the most famous of which is his A Chinese Life. Li Kunwu was in England to visit his son Lufei (Mr Wood's friend) and kindly gave up some of his time to visit our school. The Year 2 classes took it in turns to ask Li Kunwu questions about his life and his artwork and got to see some of his paintings and also watch him draw. The children asked some very thoughtful questions which Li Kunwu enjoyed answering (and which kept Mr Wood on his toes translating!) Some examples included the following: "What inspired you to be an artist?", "What was the first thing you every drew?", "What's your favourite thing to draw?", "Do you draw famous people, like the Queen?" and "Do you ever draw chocolate bars?" ("No, because every time I try they just seem to disappear!") Although Li Kunwu has visited many secondary schools and universities to talk about his work, especially in France where a lot of his work is published in translation, this was his first time to visit a primary school and it was an experience he really enjoyed. Some lucky pupils also got to see themselves in cartoon form! The children got to hear Mr Wood speak Chinese (although luckily Lufei was able to translate the trickier parts!) and it was also an opportunity for our Chinese-speaking students to impress their classmates with their language skills. Thanks to their hard work in Chinese Friday club with Miss Li, all of our pupils impressed Li Kunwu with their ability to greet him was a cheery ni hao (hello), show their appreciation by saying xie xie (thank you) and bid him farewell with zai jian (goodbye). Thank you very much to Li Kunwu for giving up his time for free and providing such a memorable experience for our children and to Lufei for helping with the organisation and translation.

On Wednesday 14th November Year 2 were visited by Chinese comic book artist Li Kunwu and his son Lufei.  Li Kunwu is from Yunnan province in southwest China and has published comic books telling stories about his home province, the most famous of which is his A Chinese Life.  Li Kunwu was in England to visit his son Lufei (Mr Wood's friend) and kindly gave up some of his time to visit our school.

The Year 2 classes took it in turns to ask Li Kunwu questions about his life and his artwork and got to see some of his paintings and also watch him draw.  The children asked some very thoughtful questions which Li Kunwu enjoyed answering (and which kept Mr Wood on his toes translating!)  Some examples included the following: "What inspired you to be an artist?", "What was the first thing you every drew?", "What's your favourite thing to draw?", "Do you draw famous people, like the Queen?" and "Do you ever draw chocolate bars?"  ("No, because every time I try they just seem to disappear!")

Although Li Kunwu has visited many secondary schools and universities to talk about his work, especially in France where a lot of his work is published in translation, this was his first time to visit a primary school and it was an experience he really enjoyed.  Some lucky pupils also got to see themselves in cartoon form!  The children got to hear Mr Wood speak Chinese (although luckily Lufei was able to translate the trickier parts!) and it was also an opportunity for our Chinese-speaking students to impress their classmates with their language skills.  Thanks to their hard work in Chinese Friday club with Miss Li, all of our pupils impressed Li Kunwu with their ability to greet him was a cheery ni hao (hello), show their appreciation by saying xie xie (thank you) and bid him farewell with zai jian (goodbye).

Thank you very much to Li Kunwu for giving up his time for free and providing such a memorable experience for our children and to Lufei for helping with the organisation and translation.