he 10th Confucius Institute Conference, with the theme of “Catering to New Demand and Pushing for Integration”, was held in Shanghai Expo Center this morning. More than a hundred students and faculty members of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) served for the event at different positions, working as performers, volunteers and reporters.

International students performing for the Gala show

More than 30 SISU international students coming from different countries such as Thailand, Cameroon and Turkey will participate in two performances of the conference Gala “Work Together with One Heart” tonight. One is the chorus “The Sky” and another is a song and dance show called “A Tribute to China”.  

Mesut Keskin is a performer of the dance show with a Wushu solo in the performance. As a Chinese learner from Turkey, he has learned Chinese for five years. Now, he studies in the master’s degree program of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (MTCSOL) at SISU. He said he has been learning Wushu for more than 20 years and is deeply attracted by Chinese kung fu movies so as to learn Chinese and come to China. “Today, I'm so happy to perform Wushu in the gala. It just makes me revive the moment when I took part in the Wushu competition in Turkey.”

Florence is a girl from Cameroon in virtue of the Confucius Institute Scholarship. She will perform as a singer and dancer for the gala. She said she arrived at the Shanghai Expo Center at 5:30 in the morning with other students, in order to prepare for the warm-up performance in the opening ceremony. Florence expressed her excitement, “It's really excited to be here. I meet different students from all other the world and exchange experience about Chinese learning.”

Multilingual reporters carrying out global report on spot

Fifteen multilingual students carry out an array of on-spot reports from the Shanghai Expo Center at the very first time. Seven languages including English, French, Russian, German, Japanese, Arabic and Portuguese were covered in the news releases and SISU multilingual websites has been updated at almost the same time.

Li Yan is a volunteering student reporter from the School of Journalism and Communication. It's her first time to attend to the site of an international conference as a reporter. “I have never worked as a reporter. This practice indeed cheers and inspires me a lot to work as a real reporter.” Similarly, other reporters share the same feelings. Chen Ting, a reporter from the School of Russian and Eurasian Studies, pointed out that “different from language studies, doing report reminds me of other interests and the practical use of the Russian language.”

Student volunteers offering multilingual support

As the co-organizer of the Conference, SISU arranged a volunteer team of 75 students from 9 language departments including English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Dutch and Portuguese. As participants of the conference are from 134 different countries, SISU students offer multilingual services at the conference in terms of interpreting, information advising and meeting place arrangement.

SISU students shine at this global event with their international expertise. When talking about feelings of working as a volunteer, Li Peiqian from the School of Asian and African Studies who helps to support the Directors' Forum meeting place, express her honor to be a SISUer to work there. “It's a perfect opportunity for our students just like me to make practical use of our language strength in such an international conference.”

The 10th Confucius Institute Conference is co-sponsored by Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and the Shanghai Municipal Government. More than 2,300 directors of Confucius Institutes, presidents of the host universities and foreign diplomas from 134 countries and regions throughout the world will be present at the conference. 

As an annual grand event for Confucius Institutes around the globe, the conference is devoted to promoting the sound development of Confucius Institutes by summarizing experience, enhancing exchanges and strengthening cooperation.