Peppa’s Chinese New Year ~ K-Tales (Feb)

Peppa had been excited about the Chinese New Year even before it had started. She had been waiting eagerly for the 5th of February, 2019 on her calendar to celebrate the new year with her family & friends – this year was going to be the ‘Year of the Pig’ which would bring a lot of good fortune.

With just a few weeks to go for the new year to arrive, Peppa & George had been shopping for new clothes to wear & toys to play with. Daddy pig & Mummy Pig too had been busy getting new clothes stitched to match the kids dresses and had been shopping for sweets to distribute among the guests they would be meeting during the celebrations.

Peppa was most excited about the new year show at school before the holiday break. Madame Gazelle had been taking extra evening classes at school for the kids to learn their musical instruments well for the show – drums & cymbals would require lots of practice to play well during the show. The show did not require the trumpet though, because Emily Elephant would play it live for the show using her trunk as the instrument.

Impressed with his tales of having visited China, Madame Gazelle had invited Mr. Bull to understand how he could help the kids learn the Chinese dragon dance. To show his knowledge of the dance, Mr. Bull had come over to the school with his red dragon mask, willing to train the kids for the show. Seeing this, Madame Gazelle had felt she could trust him with teaching the kids and had asked him to start the practices.

But, during practice classes, the kids had realized that Mr. Bull did not know anything about the dragon dance – he would just wear the dragon mask on his head, balancing it on his horns and bend his knees to shake his legs. 

Peppa, George, Richard Rabbit, Peggi & Pandora Panda learnt to do the dragon dance by practicing themselves after classes - holding the sticks attached to different parts of the dragon, they would wave and move around in a rhythm to make the dragon dance to the beats.

A few days later, when Madame Gazelle had asked the kids to show her a trial run of the dance with Mr. Bull’s dragon mask, the kids had informed her of how Mr. Bull had only been pretending to know the dance.

The kids had been surprised by Mr. Bull’s absence of knowledge about the dance despite his travel to China and informed her how he had been missing their practice classes after they had shown him their own self-learnt & practiced dragon dance, just like the way it’s done in China.

Madame Gazelle then realized that Mr. Bull had only been pretending of his knowledge of the dance and probably he had not even traveled to China ever.

She had been very happy to watch the kids dance the way they had practiced by themselves and had asked them to watch a few videos on the internet to learn the dance even better by themselves.

On Chinese New Year eve, during the morning assembly, Madame Gazelle had instructed all the kids how they would be celebrating the evening in the open garden outside the school with the parents following them closely as they danced & clapped to the dragon dance tunes.

As the dragon dance had begun, the parents had loved the show with the instruments being played and dance being performed in a rhythm. The cool breeze blowing across the garden, with the stars twinkling in the dark sky across it, had a special feel as the ‘Year of the Pig’ had begun.

Just as the new moon had risen in the dark sky, with its light shining on the celebrations in the school garden, Mr. Bull too had joined in behind the kids, trying to copy their dance and balancing the red dragon mask on his horns. As though the start of the new year with the new moon had brought to light the pretentious Mr. Bull out in the open, willing to accept his faults and trying to make up for his mistakes.

Peppa was thankful that the New Year of the Pig had started well, just like the animal symbolised - honestly, truthfully & genuinely. 

That was Peppa's Chinese New Year!