On November 3rd, the 32nd “Nation in Mind · World in Eyes” Foreign Language Festival of Nankai University (NKU) opened at the Balitai Campus. This year’s Festival provides a wonderful cultural feast for Chinese and foreign teachers and students in the form of a garden tour, world cultural performances, and other activities. It allows the audience to immerse themselves in the charm of cultural diversity and inclusiveness while penetrating ancient and modern cultures and exploring Chinese and foreign cultures.
In the afternoon, the Garden Tour was held in the garden on the east side of the stormproof playground at Balitai Campus. The event set up 38 special booths covering more than 20 countries and regions on five continents, carrying different theme garden activities, and attracting hundreds of visitors to participate.
At the beginning of the activity, the souvenirs designed by students of the School of Foreign Studies (SFS) received a warm welcome. Each exhibition area presents colorful cultural elements and provides valuable opportunities to explore the diverse cultures around the world. Dozens of booth activities, ranging from Intangible Cultural Heritage experiences to food tastings, Arabic calligraphy experiences and so on, dazzled the audience. At the “Intangible Cultural Heritage China” booth, international students, foreign teachers and primary and secondary school students tried to play the guqin, make lacquerware, and experience Peking Opera and calligraphy; at the African and Indonesian booths, Chinese and foreign teachers and students experienced local traditional musical instruments; at the Malaysian pavilion, in addition to interactive games, the traditional Henna Art is in short supply. All these activities demonstrated the charm of diverse cultures and the beauty of the integration of China and foreign cultures.
In addition, the garden party was also held along with the world cultural exhibition and talented teachers and students performed to show the prosperity of the world’s cultures. Students from Hejian No.1 Senior High School brought the martial arts program “Chinese Youth”, students from SFS and the School of Finance brought Kunqu Opera and Beijing Opera singing, international students performed Thai traditional dance, Vietnamese song catwalks and cheerful Sierra Leonean dance programs ... Each program showed unique cultural charm and brought an audio-visual cultural feast to the audience from both the university and the society.
On the same day, a number of dialogue activities were also held at the campus: more than 10 tutors from Mudan Academy had lunch with the students and talked with them about their study, life and growth in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere to seek common development of the academy. Outstanding alumni from different industries, such as diplomacy, public security, media, finance, science and technology, automobile, etc., returned to their alma mater and conducted in-depth dialogues with students about their careers and future. French teachers and students have in-depth exchanges about the French films they watch. Through these dialogues between teachers and students on different topics, students broadened their horizons.
Since 1991, the Foreign Language Festival of Nankai University has been held 32 times, which is a brand of traditional high-quality cultural activities of NKU. Keeping the tradition of education through entertainment and unity of knowledge and action, this year’s Foreign Language Festival centered on “Foreign Language + Environment”. Aiming to create a new high-quality education platform with distinctive Nankai characteristics and cultural heritage connotation, and to cultivate composite talents with an international perspective, devotion to China and Nankai character, it has carried out three series of, more than 20 activities, including “Great Ideological and Political Course of Dancing Youth”, “Sino-French Love Crossing Time and Space” and “National Taste Going International”.
