Short-video contest fosters a sense of family

CHICAGO-"Learning Chinese is my favorite," says Kiri Werner, an eighth-grade pupil from Minneapolis, in the Midwestern state of Minnesota in the United States. She made the comment in a piece submitted to the Happy Family short-video contest.

Werner once lived and studied in Yunnan province and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in China. She has even written and published a book in Chinese depicting her life in the country.

In another submitted video, Annelise Carlson described her family's trips to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu of Sichuan province, and Hong Kong, and demonstrated her skills on the guzheng (a Chinese plucked zither) and yangqin (a hammered dulcimer), traditional Chinese musical instruments.

The Chinese Consulate General in Chicago launched the Happy Family short-video contest in November. Participants may present their happy family life through reading Chinese poems, singing Chinese songs, or reciting original essays. The contest has drawn widespread participation among the nine states in the Midwest of the US.

Based on some 40 videos submitted, experts invited by the Chinese Consulate General have picked five winners for the "Chinese Star" Award, and five winners for the "Short Video of Creativity" Award of which Werner and Carlson were the respective winners.

Ava Moore from Intercultural Montessori Language School in Chicago started to learn Chinese at the age of 3, and has visited China twice. The school donated nearly 6,000 face masks and 250 medical isolation suits to Wuhan, capital of China's Hubei province in March 2020, when COVID-19 was at its peak in the city. Addressing the donation ceremony, Moore talked in fluent Chinese about learning the language and traveling to China, and her hope that the people of Wuhan would overcome the difficulty of the epidemic as quickly as possible.

Moore won the "Chinese Star" Award. Other "Chinese Star" Award winners were Nica Johnson, Arianna Kim, and brothers Harrison and Cameron Riddle.

Marianne Krutsch, Andy Salk, Katie Sickling and Mulan Sun won the "Short Video of Creativity" Award.

By organizing the event, the Chinese Consulate General aims to offer a platform for the American public to display their Chinese language competence, learn more about Chinese culture and foster friendship between people of the two countries.

Xinhua