Celebrating the Chinese New Year

This week-long series of programs highlights the flora, fauna, and culture of China.
Free with museum admission.

February 4–24

Exhibit Exploration: The Twelve Animals of the Chinese Zodiac

Experience the galleries by discovering the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and their relationship to Chinese culture. Try your hand at drawing the animal assigned to the year of your birth.

Friday, February 8

Bilingual Gallery Talks

The Glass Flowers

3:00 PM & 4:00 PM

Mandarin-speaking volunteers will discuss the history of the collection and highlight specimens that relate to China and Chinese botany.

Saturday, February 9

Nature Storytime

Chinese Folktales

11:00 AM

Folktales about the animals of the Chinese zodiac will be read in English and Mandarin.

DVD Screening

First Flower

2:00 PM

Screening of First Flower, a NOVA documentary that follows the search through the Hengduan Mountains in south central China for the 135-million-year-old fossil remains of what may be the Earth’s first flowering plant.

Shangri-La: At the Heart of a Biodiversity Hotspot

Lecture and slide presentation by Susan Kelley

3:00 PM

Joseph Rock’s National Geographic accounts of his botanical explorations in the Tibetan borderlands of China were said to have inspired James Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizons. Shangri-La, the utopian land of that novel, is now the name of a vibrant county in NW Yunnan—still a mysterious land where yak herds, Buddhist monks, and fierce Khampa warriors are part of the landscape. Susan Kelley, Manager of Harvard University Herbaria’s Biodiversity of the Hengduan Mountains Region Project, will detail current botanical exploration in this remote region.

Sunday, February 10

Nature Storytime

Chinese Folktales

11:00 AM

Folktales about the animals of the Chinese zodiac will be read in English and Mandarin.

Calligraphy Demonstration

Hands-on Sunday Family Program

2:00 PM

Artist and teacher Xie Xiao-Ping will demonstrate Chinese brushpainting and help visitors practice calligraphy by writing the character for 2008’s animal, the rat.