April 19 marks Grain Rain (Chinese: 谷雨), one of the 24 traditional Chinese solar terms, and International Chinese Language Day. To cultivate an atmosphere for learning traditional Chinese culture and the beauty of the language, HUST hosted a series of engaging activities for its international students.

On April 18, the School of Humanities held an activity themed “Gather in spring for a cultural feast”, where students created calligraphic works and explored the uniqueness of Chinese calligraphy with its use of brush and ink. Participants said that the experience helped them better understand and appreciate the beauty and extensiveness of Chinese culture.

On April 20, a Chinese language corner was held in the School of International Education, with a theme of “The Beauty of Chinese Calligraphy”. In this activity hosted by Students International Communication Association (SICA) of HUST, students from different countries tried on Hanfu (traditional Chinese clothing), enjoyed Chinese calligraphy, and made oilpaper umbrellas and lanterns with various materials.

As the language corner came to an end, students expressed their passion for Chinese culture and signed their Chinese names on the canvas. Several attendees shared their reflections and insights about this activity.

MD Istiak Hossain (侯亦凡), a Bangladeshi doctoral student from the School of Economics, talked about his experience learning Chinese. He said he got to learn that there’re so many skills involved in writing Chinese characters and it was his first time to learn how to hold a Chinese calligraphy brush.

Najilul Barokah (李璐), an Indonesian graduate student from the School of Artificial Intelligence and Automation, shared her inspiration from the activity. She said that the experience of practicing Chinese calligraphy not only cultivated her patience, but also helped her better understand the profoundness of Chinese history. She deeply felt that language is not only a tool for communication, but also the carrier of culture, history and emotions.

Nguyen Xuan Long (阮春龙), a Vietnamese graduate student from the School of Humanities, said that he has been a fan of Chinese movies since he was a child, and humming theme songs of those movies sparked his interest in learning Chinese.

Elva Retnaweti (尹艾薇), an Indonesian doctoral student from the School of Education, shared her discovery on Chinese characters. She found Chinese quite different from her mother language, and that many Chinese characters are hieroglyphic, with single characters representing complete units of meaning. She likes Chinese for its aesthetic and artistic connotations.

Writer: Yang Kunjie

Editor: Zhang Shiyu, Chang Wen, Peng Yumeng