On May 20, 2017, in conjunction with Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and the Chinese Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Brisbane, the Confucius Institute at The University of Queensland and the Tourism Confucius Institute at Griffith University successfully co-hosted the 16th “Chinese Bridge" Chinese Proficiency Competition for International University Students at The University of Queensland St. Lucia. This year’s Chinese Bridge attracted a strong field of over 30 Queensland-based contestants contending for a host of prizes and accolades, including a major prize of sponsored travel to China.
Themed “Dreams for a Brighter Future”, contestants delivered a range of speeches covering their own personal China story and their ‘China dream’. This year also saw a host of exciting performances on display with contestants delivering martial arts, bamboo flute, Peking duck cooking demonstrations and Chinese songs and folk music to an audience of supporters, guests and community members interested in Chinese language and culture.
In a competition keenly contested across the three categories of cultural knowledge, speech, and performance, UQ student Ms Heeju Koak took overall champion honours. Ms Koak, fluent in Chinese performed an inspiring performance of a combined bamboo and concert flute to highlight a fusion of East and West. Griffith University’s Thao Lincoln (2nd Place) and UQ’s Sullivan Flynn (3rd Place) also performed strongly to round out the overall champion runner-up placings. With their knowledge and mastery of Chinese language and culture, all three overall place winners will travel to Changsha in China’s Hunan Province later this year to represent Australia at the Chinese Bridge International Final for Foreign University/College students.
Honourable mentions also went to Griffith University’s Lauren Harvey and QUT’s David Lee who have been long standing supporters and participants of Chinese Bridge. Their efforts symbolize the key essence of the competition, promoting a positive energy and passion towards Chinese learning, willingness to rise to the challenge and the courage to follow their dreams.
The Chinese Bridge 2017 QLD Preliminary attracted a number of high profile corporate sponsors including China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines with both offering major lucky draw prizes of return tickets to China. VerUGG, Kitty’s Image, Derucci furniture and VAC International Group also kindly sponsored a range of prizes for both contestants and audience members. Organisers of the 2017 Chinese Bridge are extremely thankful to all sponsors for their participation in this year’s event and in supporting language and cultural learning initiatives in Queensland.
In what was another successful installment of Chinese Bridge, this initiative has again provided a platform to both exchange and share cultures and reach beyond boundaries to bring communities closer together. All organisations involved in this year’s event wish each and every overall winner, category winner, and participant continued success in their ‘China Dream’.
