“The Five Great Mountains refer to Mount Tai in Shandong,Mount Heng in Hunan, Mount Hua in Shanxi, Hengshan Mountain in Shanxi and Mount Song in Henan”. The audience broke into rapturous applause shortly after RAMATOULIE CHAM, an international student from Gambia, fluentlygave a correct answer which enabled his team “NEVER STOP”to become the reigning champion.

On May 26th, the HUST History and Chinese Culture Knowledge Contest for Chinese and International Students was successfully held in the International Center Hall, attracting the participation of 15 teams from 13 Schools including School of Basic Medicine, School of Humanities and College of Public Administration.Consisting of 4 rounds, the contest required participants to do multiple choices,true or false questions, blank filling and other forms of questions so as to test students’ understanding of HUST history and Chinese culture.The result turned out to be great that 2 out of 3 teams from School of Basic Medicine, NEVER STOP team and Hippocampus team, won the first prize and third prize respectively. RAMATOULIE CHAM from Gambia won the Best Performance Award, international students counsellor Xi CHEN received the Outstanding Instructor Award and School of Basic Medicine was awarded the Best Organizer Award.

NEVER STOP team was comprised of four students, RAMATOULIE CHAM from Gambia, LALAVI YASAMIN and ZAHRA NAJAFPOUR from Iran, and Naiting SHEN from China. The team name means “never stop loving HUST and Chinese culture”.RAMATOULIE CHAMspoke highly of the contest, “I am thoroughly grateful to HUST for organizing this event and giving international students the opportunity to know and understand the history of China and our school. As a result of this competition, I am now able to understand more about the things I knew about Chinese culture but I didn’t know the reason behind them for example things to not give to Chinese as gifts etc. This competition also gave us the opportunity to interact more with Chinese students and also gave us a diverse knowledge of China that will be of good use to us in the future”.

Hippocampus team was made up of PRAMILA THAMI from Nepal, ABUBACARR DUKUREHand MUHAMMED SAIDY from Gambia, and Chinese student Jie YANG. Though not coming first in the contest, Jie YANG still felt satisfied with the result, “I owe a debt of gratitude to my team members who almost performed perfect in the first two rounds. We cannot get the third prize without our early preparation. This event gave me a chance to make the acquaintance of many outstanding students. I am impressed by their confidence, friendliness, and cooperation spirit. It is an indelible experience for me. It is hoped that I can participate in such an event next time”.

HUSSEIN MOHAMED HUSSEIN IBRAHIM HASSAN from Egypt, ROHEE YOO from South Korea, OLIVIER MBONIMPAYE from Rwanda and Qinrui NONG compose Dream Crushersteam. The four students took part in the contest as they believe that learning Chinese lays a solid foundation of learning medicine.

Jianguo CHEN, Vice President of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, delivered a speech at the end of the contest. Hesent congratulations to those prize winners and appraised the performance of all participants. In his speech, Jianguo CHEN emphasized to all international students the significance of learning Chinese. Moreover, he promised that HUST wouldhold more such events as part of its efforts to promote the exchange and communication between Chinese and international students. It is hoped that our international students could become practitioners and spreaders of Chinese culture and the spirit of HUST history, sowing the seeds of friendship to the world.