Confucius was a Chinese philosopher who died over two thousand years ago, but even today, his philosophies and rules of life are being kept alive in those who study his works. Over the weekend, SLUH’s Confucius Classroom celebrated their tenth anniversary on zoom with the Chinese community and students from local schools alike.

The Confucius classroom located in SLUH’s library is a place for students to go and study Confucius’ teachings. It is funded by the Confucius institute, a Chinese organization, and there are multiple events set up throughout the year in this space meant to celebrate Chinese culture.

“The Confucius institute is a Chinese government organization, and they started it ten years ago,” said Chinese teacher Yude Huang. “We were the first one in Missouri to have a Confucius classroom, and since it's a funded program, we usually use those funds to organize events throughout the year.” 

Started ten years ago by Dr. Ching-Ling Tai, the Coordinator of the Confucius classroom, the Confucius classroom has grown every year. Other schools, such as MICDS, have even added the Confucius classroom to their curriculum.

“About 15 years ago I was involved with the advisory board to start a Confucius institute at Webster, and because of the close relationship, I was able to start a Confucius classroom at SLUH,” said Tai. 

With Chinese New Year coming up on Friday, Feb. 12, the Confucius classroom held an event on Saturday, Jan. 30, to celebrate Chinese culture and Confucius himself. All over Zoom, there were nine student speakers, and over 90 total participants from local schools, such as St. Joe and Cor Jesu, and people from the Chinese community as well.

“Since the Chinese New Year is coming up in one or two weeks, usually we have a big celebration, but this year we cannot really meet in person. Usually we have a big party, and around 200 people participate and enjoy the meals together in one of the biggest Chinese restaurants in St. Louis, but this year we couldn’t do so,” said Huang. “Also this is the tenth year of the SLUH Confucius classroom, so the event went really well thanks to the students' contributions and efforts to do a lot of rehearsal. We stayed in and enjoyed watching a film, a drama. After the introduction we watched one hour of a video about Confucius. It was about how he became an influential person in Chinese history.”

For Huang, this event was a great way to celebrate the unique tradition of the Confuscian classroom and show off this tradition to others in the St. Louis area. 

“SLUH has such a unique program where not only the American students can join, but also the Chinese people can join too. It’s kind of like a bridge across schools. We want to make it like a bridge so we can get some connections among the schools, and also the Chinese community. So it is a very important bridge to connect every aspect of the community,” said Huang.