The CEDP Chinese Centre has moved out of the Community Base and is temporarily located at 31 Davigdor Road, Hove. We are aiming to move into the BMECP Resource Centre around September this year. Please note that the Chinese Centre is not a drop-in centre until it’s properly relocated. All of the activities and events will be held outside the office. Please see notice of each event for details. Sincere apologies for any inconvenience this might cause.

The Chinese New Year 2008 Project was a great success. The atmosphere of Chinese New Year in the city was strong and cheerful due to a variety of activities we held before 17th February. The event at the Dome was very popular, during the height of the performances audience numbers exceeded the capacity of the venue. The lantern parade made a perfect finale with 150 beautiful festive lanterns held by joyful children, while colourful dragons and lions dancing along side. Both television and newspapers reported on the success, including ITV, BBC, the Argus and others, including very positive comments, write-ups, photographs and vibrant film footage.

This year’s celebration had been developed to include city-wide events. Side events included the HK artist exhibition in the Phoenix Gallery, the Mayor’s Chinese New Year reception, a business seminar, the Chinese traditional craft workshops at Brighton Museum and school workshops on Chinese arts and culture with more than 3,800 students involved.

We had the widest partnership this year, including Brighton and Hove City Council, Brighton and Hove Chinese Society, Same Sky, Yellow Earth, China Now, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton Museum, Brighton Dome, Pavilion Gardens and Icon Productions.

This year’s event was sponsored by the Arts Council, Brighton and Hove City Council, University of Brighton, University of Sussex, Varndean College and Mott MacDonald Ltd.

We would also like to thank all of the volunteers’ intense hard work—their kind contribution was crucial to the whole event.

Explore the Difference is the Chinese language, culture and arts in UK schools programme. The development of the programme reflects the rise in demand for Chinese in this country. It includes Chinese Day Workshops, Chinese Clubs and extensive Chinese language tuition in schools.
We run the Explore the difference programme Sussex wide and have recently decided to expand the programme to reach an even wider geographical audience, due to increasing demand and popularity. Students have had great fun and been culturally enriched exploring many activities including, Chinese language, calligraphy, martial arts, lion dancing, paper crafts and dragon making. They have also enjoyed Chinese traditional stories and films, playing Chinese games and eating Chinese food the Chinese way!
With Beijing Olympics fever increasing as we near August we have many Chinese Days booked in June and July. Our team is very excited and busily preparing for the coming wave of events.

The summer term Mandarin and Chinese Culture course has started. This adult evening course is run with the University of Brighton for anyone wanting to learn about Chinese language and culture. All our tutors have a solid teaching background and the classroom assistants are friendly and professional to assist with study. We also organise social events to practice Chinese in a real environment, which is always fun and encouraging for the learners. The cultural sessions include both traditional and updated topics. Speakers with real experience are invited to give talks regularly.

Organized by CEDP-Chinese Centre and hosted by UK International Education Alliance Ltd, Shan Dong University of Light Industry, president Prof. Yan and senior staff of the university visited University of Sussex, University of Brighton and City College in Brighton and Hove. The Mayor of Brighton and Hove city council councillor Carol Theobald and councillor who is in charge of cultural and communication attended the lunch meeting at the Emperor of China on 6th July 2007. Discussion including the education and culture exchange programmes and potential business development regarding the investment of China Town plan in Brighton, which was carried on by both parties. The meeting also involved well established investment company from China -- board director of the company Mrs Zhen Qian. She is very interested in setting up sister city link between Brighton and NanTong city and bringing new business into Brighton. It shows the bright future for the development of new business links.