On September 30th local time, The Confucius Institute of Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria, Arequipa Peru held a series of Chinese culture activities to celebrate the 67th Chinese National Day and the third Global Confucius Institute Day. The military representative of Arequipa, the president and vice-president of the university, dean of each faculty, president of the cooperative middle school, previous foreign deans of the Confucius Institute, teachers and students of the Confucius Institute together with some citizens, attended this activity. In total, they numbered well over one hundred.

The well-decorated Confucius Institute

The flag-raising ceremony was held solemnly in the morning that day. The Chinese and Peruvian national flags flew together in the sky with the resounding national anthem of China sung by teachers and students. In the meeting, Dean PengQigui reviewed the development and great changes of the Sino-Peru relationship from the birth of the People’s Republic of China to now, and reported the achievements made by the Confucius Institute since its establishment. Also, he regarded the Confucius Institute as the bridge between China and Peru, which plays an important role in the Sino-Peru relationship. Subsequently, Mr. Yang, the teacher representative of the Confucius Institute, gave an example Chinese class to the attendees. They learned several words such as “Nihao”, ”Zhongguo”, ”Bilu” and so on in a relaxed atmosphere.

The teachers singing national anthem of China

The faculty and the leadership took a group photo

Angelica, the Foreign Dean of the Institute and Brice�o, the President of the university, delivered their speeches in the meeting one after another. Angelica firstly expressed her gratitude to the leadership for their support of the Confucius Institute and said that the cooperation between the institute and local schools will be strengthened, which will contribute to the spread of Chinese teaching. Brice�o dwelled on the past about the signing of the cooperation program with his Chinese counterpart in 2007, which he has been proud of all this time. What’s more, he highly praised the efforts and achievements the institute made and said that the university will spare no efforts to support it.

After the meeting, a band performance, pantomime and Peru national dance were performed by the Peruvian students of the local cooperative school. The outstanding performance with the students’ vitality attracted the audience a lot. After that, students of the institute performed a Chinese traditional dragon and lion dance, which stimulated the audiences’ enthusiasm. The volunteer teachers of the institute gave 24-form taichi chuan and taichi kungfu fan performances. The Peruvian citizens felt the charm of Chinese kungfu from them. At last, the gentle and elegant national cheongsam show and water sleeve “jinghongwu” won a big round of applause.

The performances

A Chinese culture experience activity was organised after the performance. There was not only calligraphy, Chinese experience, Chinese character guessing and Chinese name giving activities, but also twelve zodiac introduction, Chinese tea and cuisine taste and shuttlecock activities. This experience activity was like a garden party. Students needed to take part in the activity to get teachers’ signatures. With the signatures, they could get Chinese cuisine for free. The participants were in high spirits. Each booth was crowded. And people came in a continuous stream.

Culture experience activity

It is reported that, in an attempt to ensure the activity was held successfully, the faculty of the Confucius Institute rehearsed the performance and arranged the scene at night. The excellent programs were warmly welcomed by the audience.