Namibian students excited about trip to Chinese Bridge competition finals

WINDHOEK, MAY 1 — Clad in traditional Chinese attire, Perseverance Kalokela, gave other participants at this year’s Chinese Bridge Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students in Windhoek a run for their money.
Despite her picking up second place in the competition after a fourth-year student at the University of Namibia (UNAM) Hileni Eelu, Kalokela’s stellar performance signaled that students in the southwestern nation are grasping the concepts of Chinese culture.
Like her name, perseverance which means to be persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success, director of Confucius Institute at UNAM Zhang Fan told Xinhua that Kalokela’s passion to learn landed her a chance to China.
“Kalokela studied Chinese for three years and she did not give up despite the difficulties she encountered,” Zhang told Xinhua.
By landing the second position, Kalokela won a first-time trip to China for two weeks and will also attend the final rounds to support the country’s representative.
“I am very happy and excited and up to now when I go to sleep it still feels like a dream come true,” she told Xinhua.
She said she is very anxious as she cannot wait to bring back all the knowledge that she attains during the trip and share with her colleges.
Kalokela plans to become a Chinese language lecturer and assist her fellow Namibians to seize different opportunities in the language field after finishing her studies.
According to Zhang, participants in this year’s proficiency competition staged better performance than those in last year.
Most of the contestants learned Chinese from the beginning of February and now their pronunciation is very good, he said.
Zhang said that Namibia’s representative Eelu for this year commands good pronunciation as well as refined performance skills.
“I am looking forward to her performance this year,” he added.
The two Namibia students will join the rest of the winners of overseas preliminary rounds in the final rounds in July. – XINHUA