A MIA Tour for Young Children
Written by Zhining Chin
Written by Zhining Chin
It has been seven years since I worked as a Tour Guide in the Chinese Gallery of the Minneapolis Institutes of Arts. It is a volunteer job, yet I felt it is the most rewarding work among all the other volunteers I have done. A tour guide is somewhat different from a docent. MIA trained the local supporters as tour guides that they only focus on one culture. This is an innovative way to get the community involved in the museum program. I was trained in year 2000, the first focus group for Chinese Gallery.
Every month, I gave one or two tours for visitors only in the Chinese Gallery. I was trained for 6 months by the MIA experts, such as Bob Jacobson, and other professionals from University and MIA staff. Every time in a tour, I would be challenged by the questions that visitors asked. I am a Chinese and thought that I knew Chinese cultural and arts very well. Yet MIA Chinese gallery collected such a broad range of Chinese art; to given a decent tour, it involved in-depth of knowledge. I never feel confident for introduce any item displayed in the gallery without a good preparation. To meet the expectation of the visitors, I spent quite some time to read the books from the museum library and also pay more attention the details of Chinese Arts when I read Chinese books or watch TV, particularly when I went back to China for a visit.
After 7 years of practice, I felt much better to give a tour of my routes. I can present a variety of art items including browns, jade, painting, ceramic and porcelain, etc. Most of the time, I gave tours to adults. This spring, I had a real challenge to give a tour to younger children like 4 or 5 years old. How can this happened, it has to start with our Hopkins XinXing Academy, a Chinese Immersion school which will be opened in this Fall.
When Hopkins school board decided to open a Chinese Immersion school, as an Hopkins employee, I was involved in the Immersion School steering committee to help recruiting Chinese teachers and promote XinXing to the community in a variety of ways. Pretty soon, XinXing Academy had enrolled sufficient students. The parents want to know more about Chinese culture. I thought it will be a good idea to give parents a tour in Chinese gallery. So the email sent out, I got some responses and telling me they will come to the tour with their 4year old. At the beginning, I thought that I did not make myself clear that this tour is designed for adults. I did response to some of the families and indicated that. However, I keep on getting more emails from families that they want to come with their 4 or 5 year olds. Now I have to really think about this. Should I refuse the family with young children? No, I abolutively not. However, I have never given a tour only for young children like that age. I do not have the skills to handle young children. It is a challenge for me.
I started to look for some help and called the Museum tour office. The only response I got is to ask Amenda for some techniques. Amenda is the MIA focus group program coordinator, she is very experienced in giving tours. She gave me quite a lot of strategies and ideas to handle young visitors. I really started to gain some confidence, and decided to give it a try.
The tour was schedule on a Saturday, I came to the Museum a lot more earlier than the starting time, to wait for my visitors. Families came gradually; some came with the 4 year old and the younger siblings sitting on a wheeler, so they had to take elevators. The start point of the tour was designed in the Shang Dynasty. It seemed to me that I have to change my plan to meet for all families came from different direction. So I waited them in the Tang Dynasty room which is right in the center of the Hall way on the second floor.
When all the families arrived, 6 of them, the first thing I said was that this tour will be more focused on younger children, adults may have to help and be patient. All parents were very supportive, and nodding their head.
I started with the horse and camel in Tang Dynasty since there are a beautiful pair of three color ceramic horses and camels displayed in this room. Immediately, our young visitors got excited because they can tell me what the name those animals are even though these animals were made eleven hundred years ago in China. I also tell them how to say” horse” in Chinese: “Ma”, I said, they all followed me including the adults. The next thing I show them are two different camels from Tang Dynasty made in earth clay, and some other types of horses from the similar period of time.
Children were not only follow me closely, and when they looked the horse from Hang Dynasty, the brown horse, they can say “Ma” much easier. This time it made me happy.
When we stop by the Library from Ming dynasty and looked all the garder rocks carried from China, they were amazed by those Taihu Lakes rock, their shape and those big holes. I told them that the similar holes on the rock can be found in Minnesota, the Talor’s fall. On the out side of Library, there are some Chinese characters on the wall: “清风徐来” (meaning the breeze come slowly and softly) . I explained what these words means and taught them how to say it. That was fun and they were glad when I said they did a good job.
All of the children seemed very interested in those court robes with many hand embroidered dragons. They even counted how many dragons on the ropes. I taught them how to say dragon in Chinese :”long”. Of course I also taught them how to count in Chinese.
“It is not that bad “, I thought ,when I saw those kids’ happy faces, and also observed that the parents are pleased and followed the younger ones without any complaints. It was a big relief when the tour is done. As a matter of fact, I am very happy: I did it, I did it. I would’ve never thought of giving this tour. Now I am confident of giving a tour like this. I even planned to give our parents tours regularly all year around. In that way, the families will know more about Chinese arts, and they can also learn some Chinese related to the arts and the culture. That is exactly what me, the tour guide and the MIA are here for.
