On 22nd April 2017, the British regional final of the 16th 'Chinese Bridge’ Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students took place at the Ondaatje Theatre in London. 32 candidates from 18 British universities competed in the contest sponsored by the Confucius Institute headquarters.

The University of Leeds had four representatives in the competition:

Gabriel Mayoral Galindo 葛金鹰: 4th year student from the University of Leeds East Asian Studies Department.

Mark McPhilips 莫马克: 3rd year student from the University of Leeds East Asian Studies Department.

Charlie Bridges 毕天宇: 3rd year student from the University of Leeds East Asian Studies Department.

Shreya Patel 花雪丫: 4th year student from the University of Leeds School of Mathematics studying Mathematics.

Competition format

This competition for non-Chinese university students has three components - a short speech, a demonstration of Chinese language proficiency and knowledge of China, and a three-minute artistic performance. Talented contestants from colleges and universities all over the country took to the stage to impress the audience with their passion for Chinese and knowledge of China.

Gabriel Mayoral Galindo delivered a humorous speech and sang a moving famous Chinese love story song “Ling Wu”. Mark McPhilips acted both male and female characters in the dramatic performance taken from the traditional Chinese love story “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai”. Charlie Bridges told the story about his experience during a trip to the Great Wall and performed an impressive episode of Hua Quan (a kind of Chinese Martial Arts). Shreya Patel told the audience how she made the decision to learning Chinese due to a bowl of Chow Mein and also performed a beautiful dance to mix the understanding of traditional and modern China. Their performances impressed the judges and they progressed to the final stages of the competition.

The results

Gabriel Mayoral Galindo and Mark McPhilips were awarded Second Place, and Charlie Bridges and Shreya Patel were awarded Third Place.

Gabriel Mayoral Galindo was interviewed by the Xinhua News Agency after the competition.

See pictures from the event on our Flickr page.

Preparation

The contestants were jointly trained by Dr Ning Yi from East Asian Studies (EAST), Ms Zhe Yu Darling from Language for All and Ms Meng Jianan, Ms Cao Xinyan, Ms Zhou Bei, Ms Wang Chuyi and Ms Wang Jin from the Business Confucius Institute (BCIUL). All of the tutors are extremely proud of the results that this collaboration among EAST, Language for All, Business School and BCIUL has helped the students to achieve.

More about the Chinese Bridge Competition

The "Chinese Bridge" language proficiency competition is a large-scale international contest organised by Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban). Since its launch in 2002, this annual event has attracted nearly 300,000 college students from over 80 countries to participate in the competition, of which more than 1,300 have been invited to China to attend the semi-final and finals. The ‘Chinese Bridge’ has become an important platform for international college students to learn more about Chinese language and culture. It is also a bridge of understanding that links China to young people worldwide.

If you are studying Chinese and would like to be considered to represent The Business Confucius Institute and The University of Leeds in future Chinese Bridge Competitions then let us know! Email Confucius@leeds.ac.uk.