16th “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students Concludes
—Zhao Zhixing, Sudanese Contestant Wins Annual Championship

On August 12th, 2017, the final competition and the closing ceremony of the 16th “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students was held in Changsha. The top five in the finals were some brilliant contestants particularly selected from 145 players of 112 countries through the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the finals. After fierce competition, Zhao Zhixing, a contestant from Sudan stood out and won first place, gaining himself the title of “Star of Chinese Language”.

Many distinguished guests attended the event, such as Xu Jialu, Vice Chairman of the ninth and tenth Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Du Jiahao, Secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and Director of the Standing Committee of Hunan Provincial People’s Congress, Xu Dazhe, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and Governor of the People’s Government of Hunan Province, Cai Zhenhong, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, Hu Henghua, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and Secretary of the CPC Changsha Municipal Party Committee, Xie Jianhui, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee and Secretary-General of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, Li Youzhi, Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of Hunan Provincial People’s Congress, Xiang Lili, Vice Governor of the People’s Government of Hunan Province, Ouyang Bin, Vice Chairman of the Hunan Provincal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Wang Qun, Secretary-General of the People’s Government of Hunan Province, Ma Jianfei, Deputy Director-General of Hanban and Deputy Chief Executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters as well as some diplomatic envoys from countries including Australia, Benin, Sudan, Peru in China.

Zhang Yiqing, a researcher for the Institute of Applied Linguistics under the Ministry of Education, Prof. Qian Wenzhong of Fudan University, Haixia, CPPCC National Committee member, Director of Announcing of the China Central Television (CCTV), and the newscaster of “CCTV News” and James Heimowitz, President of China Institute in America and Dean of Confucius Institute at China Institute in America served as judges in the final competition, which was hosted by Wang Han and Yang Lele.

The competition was divided into three sessions, namely: “My Chinese Friend Circle” interactive speech, Creative Magic Quiz Contest and Peak Duel Competition. In the session of “My Chinese Friend Circle” speech contest, Malaysian contestant Sha Mier shared his family story of his grandfather’s crave and deep love for Chinese culture, which deeply moved the audience present; The American guy—Mu Chenpeng turned himself into a “health-care expert” and shared his experience of traditional Chinese medicine and his bittersweet health experience in acupuncture; German player He Bende told the audience about how a poem could be a matchmaker, which enabled him to get to know and fall in love with a girl who was passionate about Chinese classical literature; Australian girl Liu Siyuan performed the Peacock dance in a beautiful and elegant manner and was determined to become the “Australian Yang Liping” and let Australians hear the most beautiful Chinese voice and see the most graceful Chinese dance; Zhao Zhixing, a contestant from Sudan gained happiness and joy from the Chinese folk art and made up his mind to be a positive man who can bring happiness to the others.

In the segment of Creative Magic Quiz contest, Deng Nanzi, the most creative magician of the 2015 International Magic Association “Merlin Award” showed the audience the story of the “Belt and Road” since the ancient times through magic and cited the examination question as well as invited the contestants to give their answers. Shang Wenjie, a Chinese female singer passionately sang the song—The Ultimate Faith and Han Lei, a Chinese male singer sang the song The Call of the Road in an affectionate way. A children's choir from Munich, Germany and the Chinese Xiaohejianjiao (Lotus Cusp) choir sang The Same Song together, sending their blessing and best wishes to the “Chinese Bridge”.

At the scene of the final competition, Li Chan, a blind student of the Confucius Institute at the University of Khartoum in Sudan told her inspirational story in learning Chinese. Li Chan’s standard, fluent Chinese impressed the audience and her spirit of learning Chinese much motivated them as well. To this end, the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) particularly held a Chinese proficiency test for her and when the announcement that she has passed the exam and won the scholarship of Confucius Institute came out, the audience burst into a warm and lasting applause.

In the final session of “Peak Duel Competition”, the two contestants Sha Mier and Zhao Zhixing each had 90 seconds to take turns to answer questions. Both of them had shown a profound knowledge of Chinese language and culture, and calmly responded to each question. The score rose in turns and the audience cannot help but sometimes tighten their nerves and scream out to cheer. Zhao Zhixing won the competition and has also become the first African contestant to do so since the first “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students.

At the time of the award presentation, Xu Jialu sent his congratulations and blessings to the contestants and pointed out that innovation is the motivation force of mankind, and today's innovation is an innovation of diversity, collisions and cooperation of civilizations. He also hoped that all the contestants can learn something new in their own culture and Chinese culture and never forget to bring what their countries and peoples have but China lacks to China. He said that if you adhere to a dream, you will finally achieve it and our common vision is to make the “Chinese Bridge” more and more solid and let it play a greater role in the process of creating a peaceful and harmonious world.

In addition, he also sent his blessing to the winners: Sometimes the road of life is not smooth and we will encounter all kinds of tests. However, we should have love in mind and never forget our own important mission as a messenger of cultural exchanges. We should always strive to complete our own dreams and realize our own life values so as to be pioneers on the “Chinese Bridge” in big stride forward.