Mountains and fields are greening, and lives on earth are thriving with the approaching of Grain Rain. On the occasion of the 14th UN Chinese Language Day and the 4th International Chinese Language Day titled “Chinese Language: Facilitating Dialogues across Civilizations” in 2023, our college held an online event, “Cloud Travelling Colorful Guizhou,” which was attended by more than 30 international students from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, and Costa Rica.

Grain Rain is one of the 24 solar terms and the last one in Spring. Legend has it that Cangjie, the founder of Chinese culture, created Chinese characters so that the sky started raining to save millions of people suffering from hunger and famine. To honor Cangjie’s contribution, the United Nations Department of Global Communications set April 20 as the UN Chinese Language Day in 2010. In 2020, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation of the Ministry of Education, together with the International Chinese Education Online Platform, launched the International Chinese Language Day.

Online event

During the event, the lecturer introduced the origin of the International Chinese Language Day and took all the international students to travel colorful Guizhou in the cloud. The astonishing and splendid scenery of Guizhou amazed all the participants, and they spoke highly of Guizhou’s rapid and vibrant development. Those international students who have been to China shared their photos online, and those who have not made a wish. After the event, international students shot short videos in Chinese.

Even across borders and time zones, all the students happily celebrated the International Chinese Language Day. It is an occasion for all cultures to learn from each other and different civilizations to live and thrive together.

Yu Dandan and Hua Yingchun contributed to this story.