152 Contestants of “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students from 118 Countries Visit the Confucius Institute Headquarters

On July 4th, 152 college students from 118 countries were invited to the welcoming ceremony of the 17th “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students in the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), which marks the beginning of the quarter-final and final of this annual competition.

Zhao Guocheng, Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters and Deputy Director-General of Hanban, attended the welcoming ceremony and delivered a speech. He pointed out that the theme of the 17th “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students is “One World, One Family”, which reflects the spirit of this event. “Chinese Bridge” represents a platform for youths around the world to communicate with each other, learn from each other, show the unique beauty of their countries, and interact with different cultures. Youths from all over the world can talk about their dreams and forge friendships through this event, thus making contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

These college students visited the Chinese Culture Experience Hall in the Confucius Institute Headquarters and viewed the “Belt and Road” achievement exhibition. Some of them were interacting with multimedia and taking pictures, and some others wore Peking Opera costumes to experience the roles in those operas. Amid traditional Chinese culture atmosphere, these students were communicating with each other in Chinese with vibrant laughter from time to time even though they are from different countries and speak different languages.

This session of the competition was sponsored by the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and Hunan Provincial People’s Government, organized by Education Department of Hunan Province and Hunan Broadcasting System (HBS) and co-organized by Hunan TV (HD), Hunan Mass Media Vocational Technical College and Hunan Educational Television. Based on Chinese language proficiency competition and cultural exchanges, this competition is aimed at enhancing interactions between Chinese and foreign teenagers and telling Chinese stories in a better way. This competition contains four rounds including “Crossing the bridge” (writing, speech and talent show), quarter-final, semi-final and final. On August 4th, the final will be held in Changsha, in which global championship, continental championships as well as other single championships will stand out, and the top 10 contestants will be rewarded as “Chinese Language Ambassadors” as well.

From March to June every year, overseas preliminaries of “Chinese Bridge” become a significant festival for people who are learning Chinese language. As the scale of preliminaries expands every year, the number of countries and people involved is ever increasing. This year, 6 countries, Guyana, Venezuela, Panama, Ivory Coast, Togo, Cape Verde, organized the preliminaries and sent their contestants to the final in China for the first time.

The Chinese Proficiency Competition series of “Chinese Bridge” include “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students, “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign Secondary School Students and “Chinese Bridge” Chinese-Proficiency Competition for Foreigners. In 2002, when this competition was launched, there were only 49 contestants from 21 countries. So far millions of foreign teenagers from more than 130 countries have participated in its overseas preliminaries with over 3,000 coming to China for the final. This contest has been regarded as the “Olympic” of Chinese language, emerging as the “bridge of culture, friendship and mind” connecting the world and representing an outstanding culture brand for international cultural and people-to-people exchanges.