On Sunday 12th June, the Confucius Institute at the University of Canterbury hosted the 2022 NZ South Island “Chinese Bridge” Chinese Proficiency Competition (汉语桥) for Foreign Secondary School Students.

Ms Ying HE, Chinese Consul General in Christchurch, Mr Jimmy CHEN, City Councillor, Christchurch City Council and Mr Jianjun ZHAI, Education Consul in Christchurch were special guests.

Darcy Baldwin (Year 10), Rebekah Sime and Tessa Smith (Year 11), Anise Maclean (Year 12) and Maya Bromby (Year 13), Olivia Duffy (from Bayfield High School) and Ms Ding, went to Christchurch together. The five Columba students, together with Olivia Duffy, represented Otago and competed in the Chinese Speech Competition.

For the Chinese Proficiency Competition, our students presented a Chinese speech of 2-3 minutes and a cultural performance. Rebekah, Tessa, Anise and Maya, as senior category students, had been challenged to answer a Chinese question from the judge. They answered their questions well in Chinese. For a cultural performance, Rebekah performed with the taichi fan while Darcy, Tessa, Anise and Maya did calligraphy writing.

In the senior category speech, Maya won third place.

Darcy, Tessa, Rebekah and Anise each won a 'Distinguished' award.

We had a very good trip on Sunday morning from Dunedin to Christchurch. Unfortunately, our return flights were cancelled in the evening due to the weather conditions so we had to stay one extra night in Christchurch and catch the next day’s flight to Dunedin. We had a special adventure together and everyone came home wearing a big smile.