December 20 marked the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Confucius Institute at our university – the first regional institution of this type at that time. Over the past five years, the Institute has developed a coherent system of work, which consists in conducting Chinese language classes at the Hieroglyph courses, organizing various events related to traditional Chinese culture. Some students of these courses are prize–winners and winners of various competitions and Olympiads, including the international Olympiad "Bridge of the Chinese Language". The Belarusian-Chinese research laboratory "Physicochemistry and Technologies of Micro and Nanoscale systems" is successfully operating within the Confucius Institute.
A festive atmosphere prevailed in the conference hall of the main building, where Confucius Institute staff, Belarusian and Chinese students, graduate students and interns, as well as numerous guests gathered. The event opened with a speech by the director of the Confucius Institute from the Belarusian side, Professor Alexander Rogachev, in which he briefly told about the history of the opening of the Institute and stressed that thanks to this project, supported by the People's Republic of China, our university has a great opportunity to become familiar with the Chinese language and culture of China. The director of the Confucius Institute from the Chinese side, Cui Chuanjiang, expressed confidence that the Confucius Institute at Francisk Skorina Gomel State University will continue to work effectively in the future.
Then the participants of the event got acquainted with two videos in Chinese and Russian, dedicated to the history of the Confucius Institute and its daily activities. The audience greeted with approving applause the speech of a master's student of the Faculty of Economics Wu Jiayi, who performed the patriotic song "We are Chinese". Maria Gorbatovskaya, a student of the Hieroglyph courses, sang the Chinese folk song "Jasmine", after which students of the 10th gymnasium studying Chinese under the guidance of Alina Sukolen, who 10 years ago first began teaching Chinese at this gymnasium. Everyone really liked the traditional Chinese melody "The Fisherman's Song in the Night", which was performed on a stringed instrument by guzhen graduate student of the Department of Pedagogy Sun Xiao. A surprise for everyone was the debut performance of the newly created at the Faculty of Philology ensemble "Hong Shan" ("Red Fans") with the song "Blue and White porcelain". At the end of the festive concert, there were performances by: graduate students of the Department of Russian, General and Slavic Linguistics, spouses Angelina and Svyatoslav Aksenchikov-Biryukova with the song "Fairy Tale" and Olya Statsenko, a student of the 56th gymnasium, who, together with her mother Natalia, performed several musical numbers.
