Music played as the 6th Xiamen University Xiang’an Campus Excellent Student awards ceremony began as scheduled in the evening of November 12th in the second lecture hall of the Library. After multiple consultations and votes, results were finally published. Qizheng Li of the Overseas Education College/International College received the Excellent Scholar Award. Cheng Li was proclaimed Excellent Artist, while the OEC/International College Chinese Language education volunteering team received an Award for Excellence in Volunteering.

On the screen of the lecture hall, each of the students’ meritorious deeds was displayed. Their prizes were regarded as the encouragement to keep up the good work, as well as symbols of responsibility. After receiving the prizes, the students answered the audience’s questions and left to a thunderous applause; the prizewinners’ excellence filled the audience with positive energy.

“Most Courses Taken”, “Multiple Occupations” are just a few of the titles Qizheng Li has for himself. Winner of the Excellent Scholar award, he manages to excel at his major while also taking a minor degree in Law and possesses abroad experience in research; his works were published in major periodicals.During the interview session, when asked why he decided to take so many courses, he shared a Chinese idiom that he considers to be his golden rule — Build walls tall, store plentiful grain. His interpretation of this metaphor is as such: as a scholar, one needs to be educated in multiple fields and not to limit one’s knowledge. This is the only way to comprehensive knowledge.He believes that taking classes in subjects of other majors, such as sociology, psychology and so on is the best way to free one’s thinking and to make it more mature. When talking about his participation in research, he mentioned that study and research are mutually complementing.

 The OEC/International College Chinese Education volunteer team, founded in 2011, saw its 317 volunteers participate in Chinese language education activities in 113 countries all over the world. When asked about the main difficulties encountered while advancing Chinese culture worldwide and telling the China story to the world, a representative of the volunteering team, Jiali Huang, reminisced that in every corner of the world, the difficulties each volunteer faced were different. For one in Thailand, it was the hardest to watch the Chinese New Year Gala alone in the classroom. For another volunteer in New Zealand, it was tough to wake up at 4 AM and make her way to the classroom far away from home. In Nigeria, it is difficult to maintain a healthy environment for the volunteers while in some war-torn countries. It is hard to guarantee their overall safety.

All the past successes and achievements also required a lot of hard work and responsibility that is difficult to put into words. To be a dignified representative of China, to let Chinese language flourish in every corner of the world is what makes them feel accomplished the most.There is still much work to be done to show the world the real, vigorous China and to give the world the right impression of our country. The volunteers work hard to bring Chinese education to the world, to shine a light on its every little corner.

Winner in the Excellent Artist category, Li Cheng — or Brother Cheng, as fellow students often call him , is one of the most active students on campus. Former leader of the Xiang’an Campus Performance Troupe and the current leader of the Event Host team, he is always ready to help others and believes that we need to treat others in the way we want to be treated by them. Busy hosting events and participating in numerous performances, Li still manages to be excellent in his double major. Born in an artist’s family, he was influenced by his parents from to take up on an artistic career of his own and be excellent in this field.

Overall, in the 6th Excellent Student Awards of the Xiang’an Campus of Xiamen University, 11 students and student groups received titles in categories such as Self-Reliance, Excellent Scholar, Excellent Volunteer, Excellent Practitioner, Excellent Sportsman, Excellent Artist and so forth. This is not only an acknowledgement of the students’ hard work, but also great motivation for other students to work hard and strive for progress.As General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed “only if our youth is the one with a dream and it is talented and responsible, does the country have a future and its people, hope”. The road to the future is wide open, and all we need to move forward is the brave and responsible youth to lead the way.

Translation: Kirill Sharkovski