First Confucius Institute Day in Beijing

Foreign students studying Chinese share their stories at the headquarters of Confucius Institute in Beijing on Saturday. [Photo by Xu Pingting/chinadaily.com.cn]

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the birth of the first Confucius Institute in Beijing various cultural activities were held on Saturday.

The day was also chosen as the first Confucius Institute Day, which will be marked on the last Saturday in September every year.

Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong addressed the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute Day. Ambassadors from 43 countries and more than 200 students and residents from home and abroad attended the event.

Many traditional cultural activities were held, including classes on Chinese, book exhibitions, lectures about Chinese culture, experience Peking Opera, kung fu show, tasting Chinese food among others. The celebrations were open to public from 10 am to 10 pm on the day.

Meanwhile, 465 Confucius Institutes across the world held similar cultural activities on the day.

Lots of foreign faces were seen taking part in the activities in Beijing.

Imane, a student from Morocco on a one-year program to learn Chinese in Beijing supported by scholarship from Confucius Institute, said, "There are many Chinese companies in Morocco, learning Chinese can help me find a job in one of those companies."

Alaa from Egypt, who used to be a tour guide and is now studying Chinese in Beijing, said so many Chinese tourists come to Egypt and learning Chinese can help him promote his business.

The first Confucius Institute was set up in Uzbekistan in 2004, and there are now 465 such institutes in 123 countries, with nearly one million registered students.

The institutes are playing a more and more important role in spreading Chinese language and culture as well in bridging trans-cultural communications.