San Francisco, on the morning of Jan. 7th—the Confucius Institute at San Francisco State University (CISFSU) joined hands with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and the Education Office, Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco to hold a press conference to promote the annual Chinese Language Bridge Cup Contest through major media outlets and to invite Bay Area primary and secondary students to participate. The registration system will be launched on Jan. 10th.

Based upon successful experiences from previous sessions, the contest will be held from Feb. 26th to Apr. 14th at Marina Middle School, consisting of Chinese Calligraphy in Brush, Chinese Calligraphy in Pen, Painting, Chinese Composition, Chinese/English Translation and Chinese Poetry Recital. In order to make the registration easy, an online registration system is offered. Anyone who has an interest can log on to the website of CISFSU for online registration or download the application form, complete it and submit it to the Confucius Institute at SF State, Burk Hall 325, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132. Registration by fax or telephone is not accepted.

The CI Director Xie Jiaxin stated that the contest aimed to provide Bay Area Chinese enthusiasts at primary and secondary schools with a chance to show their Chinese proficiency and cultural skills, so as to improve their interest in Chinese language and culture and encourage them to go on learning. Director Xie said he hoped that all the participants could learn more about Chinese culture and history while improving their Chinese proficiency.

SFUSD representative Margaret Peterson stated that SFUSD is pleased to work with CI the Confucius Institute once again to host the contest, and their efforts in Chinese education has borne fruitful results in the Bay Area: Chinese courses are offered at many primary and secondary schools and Chinese teaching has become an important part of the Bay Area education system.

Consul Yan Li from the Education Section, Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco fully affirmed the significance of the contest and stated she had high expectations for the event. The consul also expressed that the Consulate General will continue to lend support to Chinese education in the Bay area.

The CI Chinese Director Zhang Hui presented an introduction to rules and regulations for setting theme for each part, which is in combination of living environment and cultural knowledge while taking into account the students’ ages and language skills, aiming to help the participants give a full display of their language proficiency and cultural skills.

The contest was launched in 2005 and has been held 7 times, enjoying an increasing number of participants and expanding scale as well as improving the language proficiency and cultural skills of the participants, which indicate good results achieved in Chinese education in the Bay Area.