The Hungarian final of the 20th Chinese Bridge Chinese Language Competition for foreign university students was held on the afternoon of May 28, 2021, and the following day the Hungarian final of the 14th Chinese Bridge Chinese Language Competition for high school students was organized on the morning of May 29, 2021.
Both competitors of SZTE Confucius Institute excelled the desired hopes as they took first place in the university category and second place in the high school category. Since its foundation in 2012, this is the first time when the Institute has achieved such an excellent ranking in both age categories in one year. On both days the venue for the competition was provided by the Confucius Classroom of Eötvös Grammar School, which is affiliated with the Institute. The preparatory teacher of both students was Xu Xiaolu Luna.
Due to the pandemic, this year's Hungarian final of the Chinese Bridge competition final was held online. The main organizer was the cultural and educational section of the Chinese Embassy in Hungary, and the co-organizers were the Confucius Institute at Eötvös Loránd University and the Hungarian Chinese Bilingual School. In the afternoon on May 28, Samaneh Raiss Shaghaghi, a student from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at SZTE, made a 4-minute long speech in Chinese, after which she could successfully answer the language questions of the jury. The second part of the competition was about the Chinese talent show, which had to be submitted on a video in advance, where the Iranian student sang the Chinese song “Love Wounds,” with an animated video of “The Origin of the White Snake” and a traditional Chinese dance performed in the background by herself. Based on her overall final score, Samaneh Raiss Shaghaghi - Chinese name Shen Mei - won the national championship in the university category.
On May 29, Renáta Csóti, also known as Qiao Na in Chinese, 12th Grade student of Eötvös High School, who had just finished her Chinese Matura examination, represented the Institute in the competition organized for high school students. The contestant, wearing an elegant qipao (traditional Chinese dress), recounted her experiences of learning Chinese language about the concept of “home” in the context of Chinese calligraphy and painting. During the talent show, Qiao Na sang the well-known Chinese song “Chengdu.” In the video the beautiful song was accompanied by the ever-changing beautiful background wallpapers of China and Hungary. After the tight contest, Renáta took second place in the competition organized for high school students.
The Confucius Institute at the University of Szeged, while doing significant work in the field of Chinese education as well as the promotion of China, takes an active role in the talent acquisition and talent management of Chinese language learners. Thanks to the dedication of Chinese and Hungarian directors, the sincere cooperation of language teachers and staff, also due to the diligent and humble work of the Confucius Institute at SZTE, no wonder that it has won first place in both university and high school national Chinese language competitions in the last five years, not to mention that our Institute was the very first among the ten Confucius Institutes in the world established by the Shanghai International Studies University who managed to succeeded in both categories.
At the same time, in recent years the SZTE Confucius Institute has performed well in other competitions, such as the “WePoem Short Poems” Hungarian Chinese Poetry Competition organized by the Chinese Embassy in Budapest, or the “One Belt One Road” English Speech Competition organized for university students. All these programs provide an excellent opportunity for talent management, and at the same time greatly increase the influence and popularity of SZTE Confucius Institute. In the future, the Institute would like to make even greater efforts to teach Chinese language and make China known for everyone.