“The great river flows eastward, the waves wash away all the heroes of the ages.” Stirring through the ages, read up to now , we can still feel how Su Shi write down the heroic poem. Poetry never goes out of style like this. The ups and downs of emotion gushing out from the great pen of the poet makes us feel the important value of poetry even though we are in today thousands of years later.

In order to let the students better experience the charm of Chinese poetry, SUIS Wanyuan High School held a poetry competition — the first “SUIS Cup” Chinese Poetry Competition on March 19th.

After a preliminary competition of more than 200 students, 18 students finally make it out to our final round, they are: Catherine Wang, Iris Zhu, Frank Pan, Yoyo Wu, Cindy Yan ,Cecilia Meng , Angelina Liu ,Angel Meng , Natalie Guo , Danny Liu , Allan Xu, Chris Zhou, Ann Wang, Coco Li, Angel You, Lucy Wang, Regina Chen, Annie Peng. In the end, Yoyo Wu, Cindy Yan and Cecilia Meng won the competition with great performance.

Let’s see what some of the contestants had to say.

In this year’s Chinese Poetry Contest, I am very glad to make it into its final round and achieve first place with my teammates. During the process of preparing for this contest, I felt very deeply about the charm of classical Chinese poetry. The competition also makes me aware that as a native Chinese person, I have the full responsibility to know about my own country’s culture. I genuinely hope that during my college years in the United States, I can be the person to spread Chinese culture and make others learn about the unique beauty and charm of Chinese poetry as well as find their life insights accordingly in those Chinese poems. Although classical Chinese poems are short, still they can bring “a-ha moments” to those who read them. In addition, Chinese poems can shape individuals into better versions of themselves. In the days beyond, I will continue my study of classical Chinese poems to polish myself.

I am very happy to receive first place in this year’s Chinese poetry contest. Before the contest took place, I set the goal of achieving first place and I succeeded. Our success is the result of great teamwork. Without my two teammates’ hard-work, I could not achieve this great outcome. Cecelia and Cindy assisted me as we prepared for the contest and cooperated well during the competition. I learned a great deal in preparing and competing. I realized I am inexperienced and naïve in traditional Chinese culture. Chinese culture is incredibly profound and cannot be summarized by a poetry competition. The poetry contest is merely a starting point when it comes to the vast sea of Chinese traditional culture. Although I know only a little about classical Chinese poetry, I still hope that I can gain experience and consider forgotten history and narratives.

Because I was the last one who entered the second round, I didn’t expect too much from myself, but after knowing that we could form groups of three, I decided not to let my teammates down. We got the first place of this competition through cooperation and help each other. For example, I was responsible for pressing the button and my teammates answered the questions. When I did the exercise questions with Yoyo Wu and Cindy Yan, I found that there were many common literary knowledge that I had never heard , so I deeply felt the lack of my own knowledge; We also created a lot of funny method to memories the poetry. Overall, this is a precious memory.

I learned a lot from this in this year’s Chinese poetry contest during the process of preparing for it. Memorizing 360 poems is quite a feat and required a lot of research, not only about the poems but also their background and the poets’. From this background information, I learned many interesting stories about the poets, whether they are sad or fun. The contest is very helpful to me when it comes to memorizing Chinese poems in the future. I have also gained a new interest in and appreciation for Chinese culture.

This year’s Chinese poetry contest remains an unforgettable experience for me. Without this contest, I could never get the opportunity to dive into traditional Chinese culture. Although I am was hesitated to attend this contest at first, still thinking back, I am very thankful for the contest and the new knowledge it brought to me. I hope that I can learn more about traditional Chinese culture in the future given the fact that I spend most of my time studying English. I also hope that there will be more people studying Chinese culture in the days beyond.

Students may volunteer to work back stage, cheer leading teams, and they may also win gift by answering questions for audience. They were all enjoying poetry, experiencing the beauty of Chinese poetry,While the stage is in full swing, it is not idle off stage.may participate in the questions as the audience, or as the behind-the-scenes volunteers, or as a friendly cheer-leading team, they all enjoy the ocean of poetry together, feeling the beauty of Chinese poetry. Many parents also came to the scene to cheer on the students.

As a volunteer for this year’s Chinese poetry contest, the multiple repeating rehearsals and busy preparation sessions left strong impressions in my mind and made me realize how hard and tiring it is to organize a school event. Watching the contestants quickly answering questions on stage as well as staying calm, I am deeply moved by the charming atmosphere that surrounds the stage. Isn’t the delight of classical Chinese poems shown by a classic Chinese saying “Wisdom in hold, elegance in mold” in Chinese?

The thing that brings the deepest feeling to me in this year’s Chinese poetry contest is each contestant’s manner when he or she answered questions. Each of the contestants prepared fully before the competition took place, their speed when answering questions is unbelievable. They not only display the valiant and bright image of young Chinese students but also present the spectacular charm of SUIS students. Many of the questions that are given to the contestants are difficult. However, they can always shock me with a correct answer when I believe they are going to give up.

As a volunteer who worked backstage, it was a pity not to compete but I still felt the excitement of the competition. My mood goes up and down as the contestants compete fiercely on stage, with some of their answers being correct and others being wrong. I hope I can go up to the stage and compete as one of the contestants in the competitions to come.

In the past, I have always thought that Chinese class in an American high school is not important for the skills I learn from it will no longer be useful once I go abroad in the future. However, after today’s amazing contest, my mind had been changed. The contestants on stage all provide the audience with excellent answers to the questions given in an extremely short amounts of time. Their answers give insights into Chinese culture which is bounded by the time frame of thousands of years and the countless literal achievements which are by name classical Chinese poems. This contest also makes me realize that how charming traditional Chinese culture is.

This year’s Chinese poetry contest made me think a lot about my past life experiences. I just could not stop myself from reviewing my past. After coming back from the United States, I have never encountered an event this big with an aim to publicize traditional Chinese culture. I have already made up my mind to learn more about and recite more classical Chinese poems. I hope I can attend next year’s Chinese poetry contest!

I feel incredibly fortunate to have the chance to learn classical Chinese poems in an international school like this. When I saw the contestants brightly answering questions and the audience paying their full attention to the thrilling show, I feel a great sense of achievement. When me and my schoolmates were trying our best to answer the questions, I felt a sense of passion that comes from deep in my heart. I think this year’s Chinese poetry contest is a great activity that is offered by the school to its student. I hope it will continue in the years beyond.

Watching this year’s Chinese poetry contest makes my mind go back to the old times when I would recite classical Chinese Poems for fun. During those old times, there were no electronic devices like phones and computers. So the poems were not hard to memorize without today’s distractions. I felt just like a little monk reviewing a piece of literature, without much understanding in my heart, the poems came naturally to my tongue. Now, I’ve grown up and I begin to understand the meaning behind the poems and the feelings and intentions of the poets. Reading the poems line by line evokes a mixture of complex feelings from my heart. 

Our next generation will eventually go out to explore the world and become a global citizen, and that is happening much earlier for them now. We sometimes worries that students may fall short in understanding the excellent traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, we held this wonderful competition to provide a great opportunity for our students to improve “national confident” and recognition of their “national cultural identity”. “The teenagers, in their prime; Scholar spirit, scold party, elegant demeanor. “ The young strong makes country strong, young wisdom is the country wisdom.Therefore, to improve students’ “national confidence” and “national cultural identity” is the original intention of our senior high school to insist on holding the “Chinese Poetry Competition”. From the students’ feedback before and after the competition, this competition has played a lot of positive guidance, watching them on the stage and off the stage, “The teenagers, in their prime; Scholar spirit, scold party “elegant demeanor. More let us see” the young strong makes country strong, young wisdom is the country wisdom “.

The collision between the ancient and the present will always wipe out the dazzling sparks. Time past fast, the first poetry competition has ended, but the feelings of poetry will not disappear for a long time in everyone’s heart.

Today in this school, beautiful poems are popular among our students.Next year, when the flowers bloom, let’s meet again on the stage!

See you again!

Category: SUIS Wanyuan30/03/2021