The movie-dubbing contest arouses interest for studying Chinese language and culture movie-dubbing contest arouses interest for studying Chinese language and culture

On November 14, 2015 Confucius Classroom at Novosibirsk State University (NSU) held the first Chinese movie-dubbing contest for university students of the Siberian region. 13 teams form NSU, Novosibirsk State Normal University (NSNU), Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU), Siberian Institute of Management - branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation (SIM), Tomsk State University (TSU) and Altai State University (ASU) took part in the contest. The contest was divided into two parts. In the first part competitors needed to dub the designated movie clip that had been chosen in advance from the romantic comedy directed by Feng Xiaogang “Be There or Be Square”. The second part was to dub self-selected movie clips. Each team had selected its own clip and dubbed it in live performance. The teams from NSU dubbed the clips from “Under the Hawthorn Tree” (directed by Zhang Yimou), “Confucius” (directed by Hu Mei) and “Love Is Not Blind” (directed by Teng Huatao). TSU team had selected a clip from the comedy “Lost in Thailand” (directed by Xu Zheng). The team from SIM performed the dubbing of a clip from the comedy-drama film “Go away, Mr. Tumor” (directed by Han Yan). The teams from NSNU dubbed clips from “Fight Back to School” (directed by Gordon Chan), “New Age of Love” (directed by Zhang Xiaoguang), “Pure Red Heart” (directed by Ye Daying) and “The Stolen Years” (directed by Wong Chunchun). ASU teams had selected clips from the movies “Monster Hunt” (directed by Raman Hui) and “Lost in Thailand” (directed by Xu Zheng). The team from NSTU had chosen a clip from the cartoon “The Bench”. All the competitors demonstrated vivid performances and high level of Chinese language skills, but a special mention must be made of the emotional performance of the TSU team that earned a lot of applause. In order to ease the tension of the competition, teachers of Confucius Classroom presented wonderful performance. Zhao Yuan and Dmitry Khlichkin, the hosts of the contest, dubbed a clip from the Soviet movie “Office Romance” (directed by Eldar Ryazanov) in Chinese. Bai Miao, Chinese volunteer teacher, played the guzheng classical “Fisherman's Song”. The first prize of the contest went to one of the NSU teams. The teams from TSU and SIM shared the second prize, while the third prize was shared between ASU and NSU teams. Angelina Krylova from SIM, Lilia Kizilova from TSU and Alexandra Pozhidaeva from NSTU won special awards for the best pronunciation, the best artistic impression and the best potential, respectively. After the contest most of the teachers and students expressed a belief that such competitions could not only improve the speaking ability, but also stimulate the enthusiasm for further studying the Chinese language and culture. The contest renewed and enriched the forms of learning Chinese. The atmosphere of professional contest and the wonderful talent show were well received and aroused a great interest. This contest was reported on Hanban, NSU and Xinjiang University news websites. Confucius Classroom at NSU plans to hold the second Chinese movie-dubbing contest on October 22, 2016.