Happy Year of the Loong

The 龙 Lóng (or Loong / Chinese Dragon) has just arrived at Queen’s!

What an exciting day to welcome the auspicious 龙 Lóng (or Loong / Chinese Dragon) to Queen’s One Elmwood on Thursday 8th February, regardless of the blustery weather (which was said to be accompanying the Loong)!

Dragon Dance performed by QUB Success Lion Dance Club at One Elmwood social space.

Over 60 staff and student representatives from a range of diverse cultural backgrounds celebrated the launch of Year of The Chinese Dragon programme, jointly organised by the Language Centre, iRISE Staff Network, Student Experience Team, The Graduate School, Chinese Students and Scholars Association, supported by Diversity, Inclusion and Staff Wellbeing Unit, and partially sponsored by the QUB Annual Fund.

Professor Margaret Topping, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, welcomed the value of contact between different languages and cultures for the benefit of enhanced mutual respect through intercultural exchange.

Professor Margaret Topping, PVC (Global Engagement), delivered a welcome speech to the audience.

We wish that this celebration programme on the Year of The Chinese Dragon, as part of our Celebrating Cultural Diversity at Queen’s scheme, will make a contribution to the multicultural campus development, which sees differences as strength to foster an environment of open-mindedness and acceptance.

The Launch event featured student/alumni performances including guzheng music and classical dance, QUB Staff Wellbeing Choir’s singing of both Chinese and local songs, and the bustling and exciting Dragon Dance inside One Elmwood, followed by an interactive CNY Fair with cultural displays.

The CNY celebration programme includes a three-week-long events and it welcomes all students and staff members to choose their favourate ones to attend in the coming two weeks. For full programme and registration links, please visit CCP2024 Homepage.

More photos will be added to our FB account and if you wish to share yours with us, please attach them via the Comment box below, or click the link for multiple uploading

Call for Volunteering for CNY Celebrations

Happy International Volunteer Day (05/12)!

The Language Centre is organising a Chinese New Year Celebration Information Session to mark the International Volunteer Day (05/12) on Monday 04/12 (13:00-15:00) at the Auditorium, McClay Library. If you are interested in what’s going to happen and how you can get involved, feel free to pop in and join us in the session.

Call for volunteers

As the Year of the Dragon (龙年春节) is arriving in Feb 2024, we are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese New Year celebration at Queen’s. It could be in the form of a variety of cultural performances, or language/culture-related topics and skills, and is open to both Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese speaking volunteers.

If you would like to express your interest in volunteering for the preparation and delivery of the proposed events, feel free to scan the QR code, or click the Form URL below to submit your interest.

We also look forward to working with you in our future language and cultural events.

Language Centre Course Enrolment

The second enrolment for courses, including Chinese, to start in January 2024 has now been available online. Anyone wishing to learning Chinese can find relevant course timetable and registration information from The Language Centre Homepage.

Recruitments

【招募古筝表演】
招募人数:1人
参演日期:9月20日 周三
参演地点:Queen’s校园
参演时间:中午,不超过半小时
是否有偿:是
要求:Queen’s 在读学生
联系人:王老师
联系方式:liang.wang[at]qub.ac.uk
招募截止日期:9月10日

A guzheng for display at the Language Centre office. Photo: Liang WANG

【招募拍摄助理】
招募人数:2人
拍摄日期:9月23日 周六
拍摄地点:Queen’s校园和市中心
拍摄时间:全天8小时(最多)
是否有偿:是
要求:须为Queen’s 持有Tier4 签证的在读学生、擅长拍摄建筑、对构图有审美、自带设备更佳
联系人:何老师
联系微信:carriehe2016
招募截止日期:9月15日

Queen’s Media and Broadcast PG students (Mengjia QU, Jiaqi LI and Xiaoya WU) working onsite. Photo: Liang WANG

Call for volunteers 常招志愿者

We are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese language and cultural events at Queen’s. It could be in the form of a variety of cultural performances, or language/culture-related topics and skills, and is open to both Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese speaking volunteers.

We look forward to working with you in our future events.

QUB Chinese students won Anjool Maldé Prize

Congratulations to the winners: Yilin CAO (曹意琳), Fangzhou YANG (杨方舟), Ya LI (李亚) for their Documentary ‘The Gift Tree‘!

About the prize

Anjool Maldé (Jools to his friends and colleagues) […] lived a short but rich life, […] who touched so many lives in special, ​endearing and  enduring ways.

Anjool Maldé Award is as a legacy to Jools’ memory, the Anjool Maldé  Memorial Trust (The AMMT) awards prize money to the UK’s brightest best to reward, inspire and celebrate outstanding talent.

Anjool Madle memorial trust

ANJOOL MALDÉ YOUNG JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR

Co-hosting the Anjool Maldé Young Journalist Award, Queen’s University Belfast has jointly hosted the award ceremony at Queen’s Film Theatre to three Chinese students – Yilin CAO, Fangzhou YANG, Ya LI – all from School of Arts, English and Languages, majoring in Media and Broadcast Production.

About the Documentary

The documentary, ‘The Gift Tree‘, tells the story of Belfast’s ‘One Million Trees‘ environmental programme against the backdrop of Net-Zero Carbon Belfast plan. We made this documentary with the hope that it can reflect the value of a Net-Zero Carbon city and the need to protect the environment, thus calling on everyone to contribute to environmental protection.

Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya

In retrospect, the winners felt proud of being able to participate in, and contribute to, the competition that Queen’s University is involved in as a co-host. They further explained:

At one point, we saw an advertisement for admissions at Queen’s University, reporting that a student had won the award. This news aroused our great interest in choosing Queen’s for this course. We were really really amazed at seeing our names written on the award certificate this year. To be honest, being international students, producing a documentary and winning the prize takes a lot more effort than any home students will do because of the language barrier and communication across cultures. We had to get to know the places as quickly as possible, find the right people for interviews and understand and select the stories that deserve to be told, which we hadn’t built up in our experiences before. We were really thrilled when we finished the documentary. We are delighted to have won the 2022 Anjool Maldé  Journalism Award for our documentary, thanks to the hard work of the three of us and the guidance of our supervisors and teaching assistants.

As well as collaborating on this documentary, the three of us are also very good friends in life. Although we have shared expertise in film production, we have diverse areas of specialism, which has served us well in the making of the documentary. Together we completed the shooting plan and the subsequent editing of the entire documentary, including but not limited to on-site interviews, video shooting, drone shooting, video production, script editing, post-editing, music and sound effects production. This is our learning practice in MA Media and Broadcast Production at Queen’s University Belfast. The process of making this documentary enabled us to gain a wealth of practical experience in documentary production. The honour of receiving the Anjool Maldé Journalism Award is the best proof our efforts and a testament to the value of this work.

The Anjool Maldé Journalism Award means a lot to the three of us. It’s a recognition of our abilities and a huge motivation for us to continue with the industry of media production. Bearing this in mind, in the future we will shoulder responsibility as media workers and journalists and continue to explore valuable stories and express them in the best form of media.

Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya

Watch the Documentary

Thanks to Yilin, Fangzhou and Ya’s kind offer, we would like to share with you all the documentary ‘The Gift Tree’ for appreciation. If you have any thoughts, ideas, and comments regarding the producers and the documentary, please leave your message in the box below. We are happy to pass it on to the contributors.

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Chinese course enrolment and call for volunteers

With the approaching of the new semester we are pleased to announce that the Language Centre course enrolment starts at 00:30 on Thursday 1st September. We offer over 80 classes in 14 different languages, including Chinese, that have both online and in person teaching. All classes will commence week beginning Monday 10 Oct 2022.

Online registration will be closed on Thursday 6 Oct and we welcome all to make an early registration as courses are extremely popular and fill up quickly.

Class schedule and registration links are accessible via Language Centre website.

Chinese language courses are offered from level 1 to level 5.

Call for volunteers

We are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese language and cultural events at Queen’s. It could be in the form of a variety of cultural performances, or language/culture-related topics and skills, and is open to both Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese speaking volunteers.

We look forward to working with you in our future events.

Read the Chinese version here.

Chinese Cinema Season

Hooray! The biggest film festival for Chinese cinema of the year in Europe has landed in the UK, with a rich programme of films and events starting from 10th May until 10th June!

UK-China Film Collab

According to the UK-China Film Collab (英中电影合作研发中心), the presenter of Odyssey: a Chinese cinema season –

From 10th May to 10th June 2022, with more than 60 films in 8 curated sections, 10 panel discussions and many inspiring Q&A sessions, we will bring you a whole month of outstanding and innovative Chinese cinema that promises to illuminate your mind. The festival will not only introduce the latest young Chinese film talents to the UK audience, but also provide forums for professionals to exchange creativity and business ideas.

Odysseychinesecinema.com

While many of the events will take place in London and Edinburgh, there are a good many online events and films that one can choose to attend, some of which are free. Below are the highlights for local Chinese community and fans of Chinese films in Northern Ireland.

Neo Horizon: The Audience Award

As audience, you are invited to view the six selected films for free and vote for the Audience Award, starting from 10th May. Don’t miss out!

Shanghai Animation Film Studio Retro

This is a great opportunity to enjoy some classic Chinese animated films of different eras and art styles while learning about the history of Chinese animation.

Click OdysseyChineseCinema.com for details.

Discussion Panels

During the month-long China Cinema Season, there will also be ten online discussion panels, exploring aspects of UK-China film collaboration and other topics such as regional cinemas and the role of female film programmers in China.

Click Discussion Panels for details.

Hope you all will enjoy a fantastic season of Odyssey journey with Chinese films!

CHINESE CINEMA

YOUNG PROGRAMMERS SELECTION – Diversity of Chinese Cinema and Minority Groups in China

“There are 56 ethnic groups in China. The diverse stories of different ethnic groups on the screen contributes to the diversity of Chinese cinema. Both the collections of classic Chinese films and films of Chinese minority ethnic groups involve films that are made by the most prominent Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Generation of Chinese Filmmakers and the latest new filmmakers of China.

From the film The Horse Thief made in the year 1986 to the River Road made in 2014, the Chinese film industry and film cultures witnessed massive changes. While the Chinese film industries growing rapidly during these years, the major roles that used to be played by the state-owned studios are now played by different types of producers. In recent years, the films that tell stories about minority ethnic groups are frequently paid attention to by the worldwide audiences.”

Li Peize
  • Li Peize
  • Co-editors-in-chief, Frames Cinema Journal
  • PhD Candidate, University of St. Andrews, 2017 – to date
  • MA in Film Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, 2016
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