Photo taken by Sneha Gaur
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was first released in 2000, and is set in the Qing Dynasty. The film follows Li Mu Bai, a skilled swordsman and martial artist, as he searches for his master’s killer, the Jade Fox. Along the way, he must fight bandits, assassins and other unsavory folk alongside his best friend and secret romantic interest, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh).
Chinese teacher Kathy Wang has been the adviser to CHS for about ten years. She thinks that having clubs show movies is a good idea, since the students need the stress relief from the heavy workload.
“We obviously can’t watch movies every day, but with clubs like CHS, they’ve already worked very hard this semester,” Chinese teacher Kathy Wang said. “During tutorial, members always come by and tutor other students. If they’re struggling with Chinese, they are always willing to tutor and help them. So at the end of the semester they like to come and relax a bit.”
Junior Michelle Li, a veteran of CHS since the second semester of her freshman year, thinks that the club is a helpful resource for those struggling with Chinese. She really enjoys the friendly atmosphere that the club’s meetings project.
“Whenever I go there, I just really like the environment,” Li said, “because I get to help other students who might be struggling with the class, but if they need help, I can help them out. That’s really fun.”
Part of being a member of CHS is acquiring points through participating in club activities like tutorial meetings. The movie showing, for example, was worth one point. Even though “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is a martial arts flick and built for entertainment purposes, Li still thinks it retains some form of educational value.
“The movie shows me how martial arts played a role in China,” Li said.
Sophomore Rishi Upadhyay is a first time member of CHS. He just joined this semester because he thought it would make an excellent supplement to his pursuit of learning Chinese, and was greatly intrigued by the movie.
“I think it was getting interesting,” Upadhyay said. “Obviously, we couldn’t watch the whole thing because it was only one lunch period, but it was getting interesting and I would like to continue it some other time.”
