On August 27th, the Confucius Institute at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RIO) held the 7th anniversary celebration of its establishment.
Alexandre Montaury, Director of Department of Letters of PUC-RIO, delivering a speech at the 7th anniversary celebration of the Confucius Institute at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
At the celebration, Kou Xuechen, Director of the Department of Calligraphy of Hebei Normal University, and Zhou Songlin, a teacher of traditional Chinese painting of Qingdao University, wrote Chinese calligraphy and drew ink wash painting. Chu Aixuan, a volunteer teacher at the Institute, played the flute, and Gabriel, the champion in martial arts competition in Brazil, performed for guests. There were also exhibition stands displaying paper cutting, tea art and Chinese teaching, which attracted a number of visitors to experience and share their ideas.
Gabriel, the champion of the martial arts competition in Brazil, performing Chinese martial arts at the 7th anniversary celebration of the Confucius Institute at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Ronnie Lins, a scholar from Brazil Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) who came to attend the celebration, told the journalist that he has been learning erhu on his own and really hopes to find a teacher to teach him.
Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in Brazil outnumber those of other Latin America countries. On August 28th, the 5th Confucius Classroom in Brazil was inaugurated at Fluminense Federal University. Moreover, after the first Portuguese-Chinese bilingual high school in Brazil co-established by the Institute and the state government of Rio de Janeiro in 2015, the second bilingual high school co-funded by the Institute and the state government of Espírito Santo is to be opened in September.
Qiao Jianzhen, Chinese Director of the Institute, said that the Brazilian people now have not only known China in general, but dug into the research in some fields. They have a huge demand for understanding Chinese culture. (cited from Confucius Institute Headquarters, source: people.cn, Story by Zhu Dongjun, Chen Xiaowei)
