On 06 August 2021, the14th Longyuan Mulilo "Chinese Bridge" language competition for secondary school students, South African finals were held by the Cape Academy of Mathematics, Science and Technology (CAMST) in Cape Town.
A total of eleven South African high school students from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng Province participated in the competition. Due to Covid-19, the competition was held onsite and online. Participants had the option of competing online or coming to CAMST.
The CAMST principal Mrs Emily Naidu along with their partnering Chinese High school Deputy Principal Mrs Jiang Xiaofeng, welcomed the contestants and guests.
The speeches from the special guests are shared below:
Consul General Mr Lin Jing, Consulate General of China in Cape Town told the contestants and guests that the "Chinese Bridge" Chinese Proficiency competition has become an important platform for students from all over the world to learn Chinese and understand China. It has built a transnational inter-cultural bridge between China and young people all over the world and enables foreign students to get familiar with China and have a better understanding about China.
Ms Modiba, Director for Curriculum from the Department of Basic Education, South Africa summarized the education cooperation between South Africa and China in the past 10 years. She said the language competition is a good way to showcase the cultural aspect of the South Africa-China partnership, under the People-to-People Exchanges and Cooperation pillar. She ended with the best wishes to the learners for the competition and added to the slogan of the day “fly high with China and South Africa!”
Of the eleven contestants that presented Chinese language and Chinese culture skills, Lisa De Man and Khensani Motsepe who are respectively of from Fairmont High School and Pretoria Chinese School won the competition.
The two winners will go to China for the world final competition at the end of this year to representf South Africa. They went through the knowledge writing test, speech competition and cultural performance competition.
The 14th “Chinese Bridge” Language Competition is sponsored by Longyuan Mulilo, an Independent Power Producer operating two wind projects in De Aar, Northern Cape. This is the third time that this company has sponsored and showed their support for “Chinese Bridge” language competition.