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Puxi Campus G4-5: Chinese Character Final Competition

November 17, 2022

Chinese characters have evolved from the inscriptions on oracle bones, Jin, Zhuan, Li, Kai, being the symbol of communications in China and representing the profound culture of the nation’s history. On November 17, students gathered in the auditorium at the Puxi campus, singing the theme song of the competition written by SHSID Chinese teachers. With the warm atmosphere, we welcomed the Chinese Character Final Competition of Grades 4-5. Let’s watch a video first!

Each fourth and fifth-grade class selected two students in the pre-contest and regrouped into a 4-person team to participate in the competition. There were three rounds of competition, testing participants’ knowledge of character components and structures, collocations, pronunciations, as well as their history and culture. All the students actively participated in the activities, writing down answers on their answer sheets and showing great excitement.

The first round of games tested students’ familiarity with the characters’ writing and pronunciation. With only parts of the character given on the screen, students needed to guess the character before all the blockers have disappeared. Additionally, in the game “Listen to the Sound and Get the Meaning”, students were challenged with easily mispronounced phrases.

After two rounds of warm-up, here came the actual competition. How many characters can you write that have the radical of “hand”? What are the miswritten characters in the paragraphs? What idioms can you get after replacing one character of the original idioms? After hearing these questions, students immediately wrote down their answers on their answer sheets. The competition also tested students’ ability of understanding and applying words, such as finding out the connotations of the words in the context of a song, or looking for the metaphors in the songs provided.

The final round was the most competitive part. In the tense atmosphere, the last four teams competed to be the champions. According to the inscriptions on the oracle bones in the video, students were asked to write all the modern characters of these inscriptions, testing their knowledge of character evolution and history. Finally, after three rounds of fierce competition, Team 4 (4-4 Brandon, 4-4 Timmy, 5-2 Peter, 5-7 Russell) became the champions of the 2022 Chinese Character Competition! Surrounded by exciting cheering, Ms. Liu Fang, the middle and primary school vice principal, awarded the trophy to the champions.

Chinese characters have experienced a long history with the myth of the Character Creator Cang Jie. The shapes and the strokes of the characters have also witnessed the growth of Chinese culture. Through the engaging activities, students appreciate the beauty of the Chinese characters, keep the essence of the Chinese culture in mind, and carry it to the future.

Written by Wu Yin

Pictures by Cao Minxuan

Edited by Serene Yang, Niall Keenan