Meet Yi, our Chinese Dragon!


 


As a family friendly Museum we are always keen to have activities to reflect our family audience. You may remember I introduced blog followers to our new lion and dragon characters that were designed by Evelyn, the illustrator. We always wanted to give both characters names and had some debate about how we should do this.

We are currently working with students from the Museums Studies course at Leicester University. Three lovely young Chinese students have been helping us with our website and social media and as part of their remit they have undertaken to lead on the naming of both characters. As the dragon has a Chinese connection, we asked the students to name it. After some debate they came up with the name 'Yi.' Their explanation was as follows:

'YI is a Chinese letter, which has many significative implications. Firstly, in Taoism of China, YI means the origin of everything, which has a similar meaning of the Chinese Dragon Secondly, YI symbolizes brave and perseverance, meanwhile, the Chinese dragon also has these beautiful morals. Thirdly, in ancient China, the Chinese emperor is the master of Chinese citizens. The dragon is considered a symbol of the emperor, YI also could mean the head of the family. So, YI is a good term in Chinese.' 

We our very excited to welcome Yi to the Museum family. So look out for Yi on social media and our website in the very near future!



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