On November 25, the Global Final of the 14th "Chinese Bridge" Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign Secondary Students was held on the "cloud". The continental champions participating in the finals were Rio Ohori from Japan, Jasmine Petty from Australia, Marina Hu De Jesus Manuel from Mozambique, Edilian Uceta Espinosa from the Dominican Republic and Lucía García Díaz from Spain. They were selected from 100 competitors from 76 countries and 83 regions, and had previously made it to the global finals through the Global Finalist Competition and the Five Continents Championship.
After five challenging parts in the final, Lucía García Díaz won the global championship of this year's "Chinese Bridge".
Professor Li Bo from the School of Chinese Language and Literature at Nanjing Normal University, host Hai Xia from China Media Group, and Professor Yue Qi from the International Chinese Language Education Program at Communication University of China served as the judges. There was also a special guest, the intelligent robot "C Xiaoqiao (Cute Bridge)", as the host.
Mohamed Jihad Mohamed Moustafa from Egypt and Li Xia (Chinese name) from Ukraine were also on site to cheer on the competitors as a helper group.
The first three parts, "Magnificent Scenery", "Historical Past" and "Chinese Cuisine", are objective multiple-choice questions, which focus on testing the competitors' knowledge of Chinese online shopping, the Winter Olympics, ecology, folk-custom, idioms, opera, food and space technology. The competitors answered with their Chinese knowledge quickly and fluently and the competition was very exciting. The competitors also benefited a lot from the judges' elicited explanations of the topic content.
In the fourth part, "Review Timely While Learning", the competitors used any one of the words "Sour, Sweet, Bitter and Spicy" to express their feelings or interesting stories about learning Chinese.
Jasmine Petty said she had experienced a lot of failures in her Chinese learning process, and said that although the experience was "bitter", she believed that it would eventually bring sweet memory.
Rio Ohori said that learning Chinese has turned her into an outgoing and confident girl. What's more, she has made a group of like-minded friends. "Learning Chinese is the 'sweet' part of my life."
Marina Hu De Jesus Manuel chose the word "sour" to describe her journey of learning Chinese. She once wanted to give up because learning Chinese was so difficult. Her Chinese teacher aroused her interest in Chinese through traditional Chinese culture. "By relying on the hint of sweetness I tasted from Chinese culture, my journey of learning Chinese went from 'sour' to 'cool'."
"There was an ancient guy who worked so hard by hanging his hair on the beam and pricking his leg with an awl to stay awake; there's now Lucía García Díaz who'd rather eat spicy food of loving China for the sake. " Lucía García Díaz even acted as she talked, vocalizing her story about ordering food in a Chinese restaurant, and everyone was amused by this little girl.
"Learning Chinese is really a happy and sweet starting point for me." When Edilian Uceta Espinosa talked about his Chinese learning journey, he joked, "It's easy to love each other, but hard to live together." Learning Chinese is like riding a roller coaster, and during the ups and downs of the learning journey, he tasted the freshness and sweetness of the growing road.
According to the scores by judges, Rio Ohori and Lucía García Díaz entered the peak showdown - "Impression of China". The two competitors took turns to choose a topic for each other to elaborate on. The topics included history, poetry, technology, culture, geography and food, mainly to examine the competitors' knowledge of China. Eventually, Lucía García Díaz became the global champion.
"Fly High with Chinese." This year is the 20th anniversary of "Chinese Bridge". Over the past 20 years, more than 1.5 million young people from more than 160 countries have participated in the "Chinese Bridge" competition. Youths from different countries and nationalities have bonded over Chinese, building "bridges of language, culture, friendship and soul". In the future, "Chinese Bridge" will continue to work together with young people from five continents for a newer and greater journey.
