In the afternoon of June 8th, “Happiness Shared in Jiangsu” Chinese Speech Contest(CUMT Preliminary) was successfully held in Room 2410 in International College, with 6 international students from 6 countries participating.

The topic of this contest is “China in Poems”. The speaker can choose a whole poem or any line in a poem as an introduction to give a speech, to express their understanding of Chinese culture or language. Or they can start from a whole poem or any line in a poem to develop into a speech to make a comparison between the ancient and the current situation or between China and their own homecountry to express their feeling.

The first speaker SIMAKOVA VERONIKA from Russia read a poem Read China with a melodious violin concerto, expressing the encomium of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization and the fast development of Chinese economy and society in recent decades. She says, “this is the seventh year I’ve been studying in CUMT and in the past seven years I’ve learned a lot and witnessed the changes and development of Xuzhou and China. I hope with this poem Read China, everyone can be more aware of China, an ancient and civilized country with amazing changes.”

Next, YAHAYA MAABAD from Union of Comoros and INTHAVONE SAYALATH from Laos read the excerpt of Lovely China and the well-known Jianjia in The Book of Songs respectively, expressing their understanding of China and Chinese culture. ERNEST NII LARYEA AMARTEY from Ghana started with the poem A Song of a Parting Son by Meng Jiao of Tang Dynasty and showed gratitude to the selfless devotion of mother love. MARIE JUDITH KUNDWA from Rwanda and MUHAMMAD RIYAN RUSNADI from Indonesia expressed their feeling of missing home and relatives by reading various poems.

After all the contestants finished their speeches, they were graded by some distinguished judges with the theme, pronunciation and tones, and behaviour and performance during speech. Finally, five contestants, namely SIMAKOVA VERONIKA, YAHAYA MAABAD, INTHAVONE SAYALATH, MARIE JUDITH KUNDWA and MUHAMMAD RIYAN RUSNADI were recommended to represent the university to take the final contest.

The International College has always put great efforts on cultivating the language ability of the international students and improving their Chinese proficiency by holding some speech or writing contests and reading activities, in the meantime promoting their interest in learning Chinese language.