International students win awards
Students from international schools in Shanghai who won awards in an essay competition
Students at international schools in Shanghai who were winners in an essay competition received their awards on Wednesday.
The 2019 Shanghai Schools for Children of Foreign Personnel Students Essay Competition was the latest event in a program that began in 2011 with the aim of promoting Chinese culture in schools with activities including drama and reading Chinese classics.
The competition theme this year was “The City I Live in: Shanghai” and it attracted 542 essays from 23 schools in the form of letters, diaries, poetry and prose in Chinese. Sixty-two of them won first prizes in three age groups.
Sophia Parfonova, a student at the international division of the High School Affiliated to Fudan University, won a prize with “A Poem to Shanghai.”
She came to live in Shanghai this year but speaks fluent Chinese because her family had lived in Jinhua in Zhejiang Province and she had gone to regular schools there.
“I love Shanghai,” said Parfonova. “It’s a big and flourishing city and many people want to come to Shanghai. I also like Shanghai food because it tastes a little bit sweet.”
Parfonova wore a qipao, a typical Shanghai-style traditional dress, to receive her award.
“I like the qipao. I think it’s a symbol of China,” she said. “Since my childhood, I would like to wear a qipao when I didn't have to go to school. I have a lot of qipao. They occupy almost half of my closet.”
Sophia Parfonova, a student at the international division of the High School Affiliated to Fudan University, won a prize with her “A Poem to Shanghai.”
Li Yongzhi, deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission, host of the event, praised the students' writing and creativity shown in the competition.
Derek Ruiqi Man, an Australian student at Yew Chung International School of Shanghai, wrote a novel about the warmth of the city. In his novel, a stray cat has never left its community because its mother said the outside world is dangerous. But when it does go out one day, it meets students who are kind to it, a deliveryman who stops his moped and puts it on the roadside when it runs a red light, an old man who feeds it with his own lunch. When the cat returns to the community in the evening, some residents there have already made a bed for it. The cat feels no longer a stray cat because Shanghai is home.
Performances were also staged based on some winning essays at the awards ceremony at Shanghai High School International Division.
One program was produced based on the essay “Vanishing Shanghai Dialect” written by Siyu Chen from Wellington College International Shanghai, which won a first prize.
While Chen delivered a speech on the essay, her schoolmates danced and chanted well-known Shanghai children’s folk rhymes.
Chen said she was born in America, but her parents and grandparents are all Shanghainese. She came back to Shanghai with her parents and the Shanghai dialect became her first language. But growing up she was speaking less Shanghai dialect and she wished more people would take action to protect Shanghai dialect, an important part of the city culture, and make sure folk rhymes return to local communities.
A program produced based on the essay “Vanishing Shanghai Dialect” written by Siyu Chen from Wellington College International Shanghai
Andrew Willis, head of the prep school at Wellington College International Shanghai, said it was important for the school and its students to embrace the culture of the host nation and Wellington has been participating in “Bring Chinese Culture into Campus” activities since it was established in 2014. This year, 30 students from the school took part in the essay competition.
Although two-thirds of its students have Chinese parents, Willis said, the school embraces Chinese culture not only for the parentage of those children, but also because the city is where all the children feel at home.
“We have many children in our school whose parents are both foreigners. But the children were born and being brought up in Shanghai. When you ask their home, they say Shanghai. They speak fluent Chinese and they feel very much at home here,” said Willis.
He said the school gives Chinese language the same status as English and math. All the children learn Chinese, and all the Chinese festivals are celebrated at the school. Spring Festival is the biggest celebration and the school has already been preparing for the celebration, with children practicing performances and a temple fair being organized.
