Registration for night school’s spring semester to open on Friday

The spring semester of “Shanghai Citizen Night School” will open for registration on Friday, with 680 courses available for residents, including several designed for foreigners.

These courses will be available to 15,000 students in more than 250 venues in the city.

The expat workshops include one about Chinese intangible cultural heritage, Jingwu martial arts, which allows foreigners to experience traditional Chinese culture.

Expats can also learn traditional Chinese operas and the Shui Xiu movement from the Shanghai Huai Opera Troupe.

Foreigners can visit our page to get more information on the courses as well as to register. Better still, simply scan the QR code.

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“We opened the expat classes at the request of the local government’s information office, and registration will be done through the city’s one-stop information service platform, City News Service, and its WeChat mini program,” said Xu Hao, deputy director of the Shanghai Mass Art Center.

Xu said they discovered that foreigners are more interested in traditional Chinese culture, so they devised workshops such as Chinese pastry cooking, which was well-received.

“Through these workshops, we hope expats can gain a deeper grasp of traditional Chinese culture, particularly Shanghai-style culture,” Xu said. “They will benefit from learning more about Shanghai while living, studying, and working here.”

Wu Penghong, director of the Shanghai Mass Art Center, told City News Service that the Citizen Art Night School, one of the city’s primary social aesthetic education projects, intends to treble the number of teaching venues and students this year.

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Wu said each training site provides a diverse range of courses, such as intangible cultural heritage experience, art, aesthetics, working skills, and a mix of culture and sports.

Landmarks such as Shanghai’s Soong Ching Ling Memorial Residence, the Zikawei Library, and Shanghai Book City have joined the night school, offering classes tailored to their target audience.

The Shanghai Youth Activity Center also serves as the night school’s training site, along with numerous district-level, sub-district-level, and community-level culture and art centers.

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The night school also offers courses to cater to the tastes of young people.

At Minhang District’s shopping mall, Aegean Place, there is a training site where people can learn to play the collectible card game Pokémon Trading Card Game.

The night school also offers courses that are popular among white-collar workers in local enterprises such as Shanghai Media Group and China Construction Bank Shanghai Branch.

Registration for public sessions will begin at 10am on Friday morning on the Citizen Night School (市民夜校) page, which is linked at the bottom of the WeChat account 上海市群众艺术馆 (in Chinese only).

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