This year marks the 50th anniversary of GDUFS. A splendid alumni carnival, as a part of a series of celebration activities, was held on 7th November. With the theme of DREAM — Delightful Reunion: Embrace Another Miracle, a wonderful and excellent carnival show delighted the campus at the playground on the north campus. WANG Huiyi, a distinguished alumnus of GDUFS, and Professor ZHAN Cheng, Vice Dean of the School of Interpreting and Translation Studies, LIU Rong, a student majoring in broadcasting at GDUFS, and Geoffrey, a Sweden student, presided over the show. Hundreds of alumni came back and offered their special performance to celebrate the 50th anniversary of GDUFS.

Chinese Martial

Martial arts performed by the Security Department heralded the beginning of carnival, which involved many beautiful shows, offered by alumni from all over the country and even those abroad. Alumni expressed their best wishes to GDUFS in their own ways. Four alumni from HK prepared a Zither (Guzheng) show. Some alumni, who graduated in 1970s, had written a song and adapted it into a dance. Their deep love to GDUFS was vividly expressed in the warming lyrics and charming melody. This really made a very strong impression on other students.

During the first break, there was a contest about the historical information of GDUFS. Hosts gave six questions concerning the university’s history. To the surprise of hosts, students gave all correct answers. It showed that the university’s history was well remembered by students.

After the interaction part, the alumni from the Tianhe District Alumni Association performed the fashion show: A blossom age. Ladies were dressed in traditional Chinese costumes – Cheongsam – and gentlemen in elegant suits. Some of them recently graduated, were still excited to come back, and so took an active part in the alumni carnival. Following was a solo scarf dance. A lady dancer from the Hong Kong Alumni Association twirled gracefully to the beautiful music. The audience applauded widely when she said she graduated more than forty years ago, hale and hearty.

During the 50th anniversary, students from all corners of the world came back here, their Alma Mater, to celebrate the amazing achievement as well as experience the great changes over the past fifty years. Dancers from the dance troupe in GDUFS performed Reborn to express their sincere hopes that GDUFS would seize this opportunity as a new starting point and “embrace another miracle”. The entire audience was immersed in their graceful movements. The next program was the tenor solo by an alumnus from the Los Angeles Alumni association. He said the solid knowledge learnt at GDUFS helped him better develop his fashion career in the U.S. He was thankful and so proud of his alma mater. The last program was GDUFS Complex, which was an original piece from the alumni in Foshan. This song conveyed their fiery feelings towards their alma mater even though they had left the campus. Every time the obstacles impeded their way, they would think about their lives here and transfer this into the momentum to get over them and move forward. Everyone was impressed and encouraged by this sincere love.

International students dancing

At 11:00a.m., it came to the high point of the show. Amid the warm applause of the audience rang out the song We’re waiting for you at GDUFS (《我在广外等你》), which was composed by the alumni for the 50th anniversary of GDUFS. Although some overseas alumni were not able to participate in the ceremony, they conveyed their congratulations to GDUFS on video. The foreign students also sang and danced for this memorable moment and during the exotic performance they cried out “Happy Birthday Guangwai” (GDUFS in Pinyin) in their mother tongue. Students from over 30 countries danced together, showing the international face of GDUFS and the cohesion of GDUFS. The chorus of the university anthem, by the alumni and students, brought this show to a perfect end. The celebrating show was an emotional experience for all the students of GDUFS, who were or are studying on this beautiful campus.

The chorus

The carnival show continued in the afternoon. Students from all societies of GDUFS showed their passion and talent in singing and dancing. It was hot in the afternoon, but there were still a large audience. With the last song Something we need, the show came to an end. But the atmosphere of the 50th anniversary remained. Mr ZHOU, a teacher who used to work at GDUFS in the 1970s, came back to join in this carnival with his wife. He said the show was really impressive. “I like the poetry reading most.” He said with a smile.

What caught people’s attention was the stalls set on the other side of the playground. There were ten stalls run by the Institute for International Education and other stalls from students’ societies. Like the World Culture Festival, international students prepared the foods themselves and were in their traditional dress to show the culture of their countries. Alumni who hadn’t joined in the World Culture Festival could enjoy themselves in experiencing the foreign culture. “I tasted different kinds of food and took a lot of photos with them. They are really friendly. “An alumnus from Huizhou said. Kawanaka Mayu from Osaka, Japan, who was a model at the Japanese stall, said she enjoyed taking photos with Chinese people. “GDUFS 50th anniversary is quite different from the World Culture Festival. It features Chinese people, while the center of the World Culture Festival was international students.”

Spanish girls of the dancing team

Group picture

We interviewed some people about their feelings towards the carnival. Frisca, a girl from Indonesia, said she was attracted by GDUFS for its internationality and was very happy to take part in such activities. Africa and Anabel, two girls from Spain told us they didn’t have such festivals at their university. They were dancers who danced in the morning. “It’s amazing and fascinating. It’s tiring, but we are very happy.”