Foreign Students Performing Liu Genghong's Aerobic Workout - "Compendium of Materia Medica"

Besides the routine Chinese language teaching, I was also responsible for organizing cultural activities in my institution. Through live streaming, Liu Genghong's workout videos inspired netizens to exercise at home and ignited people's interest in workouts. The idea of incorporating this fascinating and meaningful exercise into our cultural activities dawned on me.

Then I had an incredibly busy week organizing cultural events and recording talent performance videos of Chinese culture for my students. Despite the pressing schedule and demanding tasks, I still desired to make my planning original and creative. Shuttlecock kicking is a traditional Chinese sport, and the shuttlecock exercise is full of both traditional and popular, playful and healthy elements characterized by the moves of shuttlecock kicking, the pop music background and the emerging fitness style. When it comes to Chinese culture, most foreigners tend to mention kung fu, Tang suit, calligraphy, ink painting or other fine pieces of traditional Chinese culture, with little knowledge of what is popular today. This seems to be a field that we should work on, as the fascinating modern Chinese life must be more appealing to overseas enthusiasts at all age and with all backgrounds. I decided to begin with shuttlecock exercises, so that Hungarian students loving sports could also experience workouts in Chinese style.

I have also been pondering how I can teach in a more relaxed way. Therefore, in my class I showed the students a video of the shuttlecock exercise, after which I guided them to write their own lines and I also presented them some classic ones, on the basis of which the final version of the scripts was developed. On the one hand, students reviewed Chinese knowledge in a relaxing and enjoyable manner. On the other hand, they all participated in the production of this video, though behind the scenes, but with a great sense of accomplishment.

The shuttlecock exercise seemed to be quite simple, but it was not as easy for recording. The performer in the video was one of my students, He Make（何马可）, who has been learning Chinese for two years. It wasn't a challenge for him to memorize the lines, but it was a big challenge for him to do the acts accurately, at the same time to keep up with the music, and to deliver the lines at the right time in front of the camera. It took us two hours on dancing together to finish the three-minute video. Tired as he was, he said he found it so fun and would continue to practice the shuttlecock exercise.

I also shared the shuttlecock exercise with more local students, in order that they could learn Chinese language and learn about Chinese culture in a more casual way while exercising. Many students expressed how much they enjoyed the shuttlecock exercise because it was so rhythmic and such a popular form of exercise for young people, showing them the positive attitude and healthy lifestyle of contemporary Chinese people.

I think I can introduce more outstanding traditional Chinese culture to foreign students by combining it with modern culture and life. I do hope my students can learn more about China.