SEU’s Most Beautiful Wutong Season！

With an oil-paper umbrella in hand and strolling beneath the golden wutong trees, the winter sun warms the air as a gentle breeze sends the golden leaves fluttering to the ground—a wutong “rain” falling in slow motion. This romantic winter scene is a seasonal attraction unique to SEU. On November 23, the 2024 SEU Wutong Cultural Festival kicked off at the Sipailou Campus.

This festival, first launched in 2019, quickly became a sensation, sparking discussions about “The Most Beautiful 200 Meters of SEU” and “The Most Cultural Wutong Trees in Nanjing”, attracting the interests of netizens. This year’s Wutong Cultural Festival featured exciting events, such as catwalks in “Fallen Leaves Season”, dance performances, and garden tours. Teachers and students also had the opportunity to learn how to make traditional oil-paper umbrellas beneath wutong trees.

At the event, Zheng Guomin, a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage and a member of the National Umbrella Making Professional Committee, taught teachers and students the craft of making oil-paper umbrellas. As a national intangible cultural heritage with over 1,000 years of history, the oil-paper umbrella is made entirely from natural materials and is renowned as the “living fossil of Chinese folk umbrella arts.”

“Look, the frame is composed of dozens of characters shaped like ‘ren’ in Chinese, symbolizing success; the ribs are made of bamboo, symbolizing steady promotion; the round shape symbolizes happiness and unity...”, Zheng Guomin explained while slowly rotating the handle. The beautifully patterned oil-paper umbrellas resembled flowers blooming in a golden field, breathtakingly beautiful.

Many children of SEU faculty and alumni and faculty also followed their parents to the event. Some ran freely along wutong avenues, others painted their own unique oil-paper umbrella, and some tossed fallen leaves high into the air, listening to the rustling sound as the wutong leaves touched their cheeks.

“My child has a particular fondness for plum blossoms. We took him to see them many times during the Spring Festival, so today he wants to create a plum blossom painting on the oil-paper umbrella,” said Mr. Hu, a SEU teacher’s family member, who took his child to participate in the Wutong Cultural Festival. He praised this event, saying, “Such activities not only allow children to experience the beauty of nature but also teach them traditional culture—something they wouldn’t learn in the classroom.”

Two years ago, Yang Yunzhu, a female student of SEU, danced gracefully under wutong trees. Today, she returned to the scene. Surrounded by the fallen wutong leaves and the oil-paper umbrellas, she couldn’t help dancing again. “Dancing in such a beautiful setting is a wonderful experience. The natural scenery of wutong leaves combined with the historically significant buildings of the Sipailou Campus is quite enchanting” said Yang Yunzhu.

Zhang Xinyi, a third-year art history major at SEU, travelled with her classmates from Jiulonghu Campus to attend the festival. She noted that, in contrast to the engineering-focused atmosphere of Jiulonghu, the landmarks at the Sipailou Campus, such as the wutong avenue and the Great Hall, offer a stronger sense of cultural charm. “Holding an oil-paper umbrella and basking in the wutong rain are beautiful and romantic,” she said.