The two-week program welcomes 191Chinese languagelearners from 8 countries

The opening ceremony at Sichuan InternationalStudies University(SISU) (Credit: SISU)

CHONGQING, Jan. 25 (ECNS) – The “Mountain City of Chongqing” Chinese Bridge Winter Campopened today at SISU. It consists of 191 Chinese language learners from 8countries, including Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh,Vietnam, Brazil and Bulgaria. All the students jointed the opening ceremonyonline. Zhu Chaowei, Vice President of SISU, has delivered a welcome speech.

The two-week winter camp includes both Chineselanguage lessons and cultural activities. It aims to promote mutualunderstandings of the students in and outside of China, enhance the friendshipbetween them, and encourage the students to learn more about Chinese languageand culture. The winter camp is hosted by the Center for Language Education andCooperation (CLEC) of the Ministry of Education of PRC and co-hosted by the Collegeof Chinese Language and Culture of SISU.

As the theme— “Mountain City of Chongqing” —indicated,the winter camp contains 9-hour live-stream language lessons, 10 lectures on Chongqingculture and 9 recorded video lessons, which provide rich useful information onChongqing, such as education, transportation, tourism resources.

The site of the winter camp in Thailand(Credit: SISU)

“In Thailand, Chinese language and culturebecomes popular among students. The students in our school show their greatpassion for learning Chinese and have achieved good results in contests.” SantiAwanna, the vice principal of Piriyalai School, introduced. He hopes that the studentscan enhance the cultural communication between Thailand and China in the futureby getting know more about Chinese culture and contemporary China in thisprogram.

Thanathip Sukontaphan, a student from PiriyalaiSchool, said that it was at primary school when he first heard the name ofChina from TV. Since high school, he has been fascinated by Chinese culturewhen he started Chinese language course. “I know Chongqing about its hospitablelocals, amazing scenery and delicious food from others who have been there, soI really want to go there to experience in person.

“This online program is an attempt to promote ourinternational Chinese learning program and to enhance cultural communication duringthe pandemic,” Zhou Wende, Dean of SISU’s College of Chinese Language andCulture, introduced, “and the winter camp aims to show the world a vivid Chinathrough Chongqing, one of its most dynamic cities. Mr. Zhou invited all the studentsto Chongqing in the future to strengthen the people-to-people culture exchange.