Enlarge Silan Chen paints Mariyah Shah's name in Chinese calligraphy.

Posted: September 1st, 2011 Greg Lacour

Six-year-old Mariyah Shah just wanted to go to ImaginOn on Saturday afternoon, said her mother, Aaliyah Shah. Neither one knew about the event planned there.

But after they stumbled into “A Children’s World of Play,” the International House program designed to introduce young children to cultures around the world, Aaliyah Shah thought it meshed nicely with a conversation she’d just had with her daughter about racial differences--and the importance of respecting everyone in spite of them.

“It was a conversation about different kinds of people getting together, black, white, how we can get along,” Aaliyah Shah said. Mariyah watched, rapt, as an instructor from The Confucius Institute at Pfeiffer University brushed her name on paper in Chinese calligraphy. “She wants to know about different races. She’s just open for anything.”

She’s the kind of child A Children’s World of Play is meant to inspire. International House has hosted the program at ImaginOn for three years, and its offerings Saturday spanned much of the globe: from a tango demonstration and Aztec dance in the Latin America/miscellaneous section, to Chinese and Indian dances in the Spangler Library, to capoeira, a kind of African-Brazilian martial art, outside the front door.

“We want to create an environment for children to experience play as a universal language,” said Lara Printz, International House’s program director. “This is an example of how we are truly alike all around the world.”

Certainly few things are as truly universal as the Hokey Pokey. Andy and Shannon Shanely watched, grinning, as their 6-year-old daughter Mia put her left foot in, then her right, along with the Spanish-English language children’s program Criss Cross Mangosauce. Ana Lucia Divins, one of the two women who run the program, was leading a group of about 20 children in a Spanish-language version of the song.

“Charlotte is such a diverse city,” said Shannon Shanely. “There are so many different ethnicities, and it’s important not to be in our own little world.”

Mia, being 6, was too shy to talk to a stranger, even one as interested in her thoughts about the Hokey Pokey Español experience as I. This was not a problem for Mariyah Shah. She was only too willing to talk once Confucius Institute instructor Silan Chen finished her calligraphy exercise.

“They wrote my name in Chinese. I learned a few words in Chinese. I like to learn about stuff a lot,” Mariyah said. “I’m a very curious girl.”

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