On 16 December 2017, ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) hosted the Grand Finals of the First Chinese Language Competition & 2018 New Year’s Gala for ASEAN Students in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region in Beijing. The event was organized by Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), Tianjin University and Hebei Normal University, and supported by China Construction First Group Corp. LTD (CCFG). Ms. Kong Roatlomang, Director of Education, Culture, and Tourism Division (ECTD) of ACC, Ms. Liu Wei, Deputy Sectary of CPC BLCU Committee, Mr. Banpoth Ujjin, Minister Counsellor of Thai Embassy, and Embassy officials of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Singapore and Viet Nam in Beijing, Mr. Wei Yan, Deputy General Manager of CCFG, representatives from universities of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and 300 ASEAN and Chinese students from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region participated in the event.

Ms. Kong Roatlomang, on behalf of ACC, extended a warm welcome to the guests and students in her remarks. She mentioned that promoting education cooperation between ASEAN and China is one of priorities of ACC’s work. The Competition is not about winning or losing, but rather to encourage ASEAN students to learn Chinese language and understand Chinese culture, and to provide a platform for mutual learning and exchanges thus to enhance mutual understanding and friendship among young students of ASEAN and China. She highlighted the innovation in combining the Finals of the Competition in conjunction with the 6th New Year’s Gala for ASEAN students, which integrated thrill contest with relaxed art performance and better interpreted the intent of the event. She hoped the contestants who entered the finals could showcase their best and embrace even greater 2018 with good performance and experiences in China. She stated that ACC will join hands with people from all sectors, to make even greater contributions to the building of the ASEAN-China community of shared future to the benefit of peoples on both sides.

Remarks of Ms. Liu Wei, Mr. Banpoth Ujjin and Mr. Wei Yanin highly appraised ACC’s efforts and concerns in supporting activities of ASEAN students. The competition is a vivid implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, which encourages ASEAN students to showcase their achievements in Chinese language learning, and talents in performing Chinese traditional culture, as well as provides a good opportunity and platform for the young students from different countries with different cultures to make friends and communicate with each other. They highlighted the design of the event which is so innovative and makes each participant enjoy while learning a lot. They wish the event a big success and ACC could host more activities like this in the future, for which they will join hands to support.

Officially launched in June, the Competition has been lasting for half a year, from the preliminaries to the semi-finals organized in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei respectively, to the grand finals in Beijing, with around 15 contestants from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam entering the final competition out of 1000 participants. During the finals, all contestants made a speech on the topic of “China in My Eyes” or “My World of Chinese Language”, and showcased their unique talent related to Chinese culture. The atmosphere was warm, friendly and exciting, with laughter, applause and hurrah from time to time. After three hours’ happy time and intensive competition, Nguyen Quoc Tu, a Vietnamese student from BLCU won the champion with his adept calligraphy demonstration of Chinese characters “The Chinese Dream”. Other contestants won the second and third prizes, Pioneer Talent?Award, Pioneer Elegance?Award, Pioneer Spirit?Award, Pioneer Innovation Award, and Excellence Prize. All of them were awarded trophies, medals, certificates and bounty.

In conjunction with the competition, it is also the sixth year for ACC to host New Year’s Gala for ASEAN students since 2012. Students from China, ASEAN Member States, Bangladesh and other countries gathered together and presented brilliant performances including dances, singing, guitar-, violin- and drum-playing, Beijing opera, cross talk and poetry recital. All the participants are looking forward to the next gathering hosted by ACC.