The Decorations

Michael with an enormous fold-out Chinese Zodiac

Wyona’s decorations are ½ artistic and the other half geared to educational purposes.

When she was giving me a box of decorations to use at my own house she reminded me that what seems like an excess of decorations is really the left-overs from a teaching career with Developmentally Delayed students.

“The board doesn’t care about the content of the curriculum as long as these kids are getting a chance to learn basic skills, and I just found it easier to teach those when they were tied to the seasonal current holidays that they were celebrating.”

And that explains why so much of the material has been laminated and still looks wonderful for presentation.

The Money Pillow

All want to try sleeping on this!

One of the first of these is a big circle, all of the animals being pictures around the perimeter and pie shaped wedges going to the centre, into which are all of the years that are associated with that animal.
This beautiful fold out begins with the year 1928 and comes forward to the present, and on to 2040. The numbering changes closer to the centre.

“Bonnie McLoone gave this to me when she finished teaching school, and I added the years going forward,” Wyona said.

ttetty playing with a mysterious object
made of mails that keep impressions, even of faces

Both of us talked about how the past is written on us – although we haven’t seen Bonnie Edna Rae for a long time, she was present at the party for us in what was a piece of educational material, but in something that was almost close to art.

I doubt the Zodiac circle will be used until 2040, although perhaps someday someone will be pulling it out and telling a child, “This is the Chinese Zodiac from a party I went to when I was young.”

Betty, happy to stand by the decorative fireworks.

In the party Wyona and I had the day before, the Pulling-Out-Chinese-Decorating party, she came upon a place mat from a restaurant.

“I don’t even exactly remember where I got this,” she said, “but when I saw it, I knew it was too good to leave behind.”

I started to read the items on the menu that day, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about prep-time, how long it takes to know material that any teacher is getting ready to show students.

... Kalina studying a Chinese menu ...

I have been thinking lately about my own invisible knapsack (thank-you, Peggy Mackintosh) of fables and nursery rhymes that are captured in music.

Until I came to live beside the little Johnson Kids next door came along, I thought I had put those songs in the attic of my life, but I find myself opening the knapsack that holds them daily, sometimes hourly lately.

That is why the day before the Chinese New Year’s Party was so much fun for me.

I was looking into Wyona’s invisible knapsack of ways to teach children about China.

Now that I am taking a minute to write about the party, I am flooded with why I have memories of objects that might not have made it to this blog post.

Wyona with her 2 grand-daughters 

For example, she pulled out a white silk wall hanging onto which was finely stitched with embroidery a typical Chinese scene: mountains, hills, and some scene of people going about their daily business, either carry burdens on sticks or working in rice fields.

I asked her what she is going to do with that piece; it seems a shame to refold it year after year and pull it out of the box for less than five minutes of viewing.

Her own walls are already filled with art. This piece should go to the framers.

... Teresa with her red placemat ...

Rolled into a scroll between two pieces of tissue was a red piece of paper, also cut into a fine Chinese scene. “I daren’t open this much more than taking a peek at it,” she said. “Just the breath of a small gust of wind would ruin it,” she said.

She laid it aside.

The next day at the party it was still on the table.

A pair of scissors was nearby.

I was idly sitting there when I saw Betty come along and pick up the scissors.

 I could see by the look in her eye, that the tissue paper was calling to Betty to make a few more cuts. I slipped those scissors out of her hand, directing the hand to go take another piece of candy out of the myriad of candy bowls that were out at the party.

And I felt a small rush of superiority, knowing that I had just saved that roll of artwork in fine tissue from a few more cuts, though they would have been random.

Michael, half in the dark when studying Wyona.
Which of her words are jokes and which are true?

I am never going to get to what happened at the party if I keep describing the decorations.

It will be enough to say that there were numerous paper hanging Lanterns, a wire birdcage that held a lucky bird, fire crackers to scare away the evil spirits,

Laminated cue cards were spread on couches on low footstools: how to say Happy New Year in Chinese, the reason for firecrackers during this holiday, the reasons for hanging lanterns, the reasons for red envelopes filled with money, so many reasons to go to google which is the modern way to flesh out information alluded to in all of these decorations.

Arta