Chinese language instructors and students held a end-of-year celebration on Friday, May 3. They enjoyed a delightful evening with tasty food and fun puzzles and games. Students were also able to learn about how to concentrate or minor in Chinese during the event. Special awards were made to students who did exceptional work in Chinese.
About 60 students attending the event, from first-year student to seniors. While enjoying delicious Chinese food, students participated in various games, such as riddles, tongue twisters and trivia questions.
A centerpiece of this event was recognition of students’ achievements this academic year.
It was announced that nine MIT students were admitted to the CLTA National Collegiate Chinese Honor Society. This society, sponsored by the Chinese Language Teachers Association, was founded to recognize the outstanding academic achievement of college students in learning Chinese as a second language, encourage them to continue studying Chinese after they graduate from college, and promote the study of Chinese language, literature, and culture in the United States. The admitted MIT students are: Elliot Chen, Evelyn Fu, Katherine Kostecki, Juan Luera, Xuan Ly, Remeyn Mechura, Vivian Shao, Viktor Baltin, and Mehek Gosalia.
Students of Chinese who had been named by Global Languages as winners of the Student Award for Excellence: (Viktor Baltin and Kenneth Choi) and the Jing Wang Memorial Prize (Zixuan Liu and Katherine Kostecki) were recognized.
Also recognized was Jackson Bliey, who was one of Top 10 Winners of the 4th Chinese Character Art Exhibition hosted by the Chinese Department of the University of Pennsylvania. Entrants had to submit an original artwork of one, or several, Chinese characters of their choice, in any visual form of art, along with an essay (in English) explaining their piece.
A highlight was when students from Kang Zhou’s Chinese calligraphy, pictured below, unveiled a beautiful banner they had collaborated on.
The banner depicts MIT values with its words such as “Learning by Doing,” “collaboration,” and “Curiosity” (see video below).
Min-Min Liang, lecturer in Chinese, reported on the year-end celebration “It was so much fun to see all the students, who have worked so hard all year, having fun with each other!”
At the end, everyone sang a popular Chinese song together, called 甜蜜蜜 / Sweet as Honey. Here are the words: 在哪里，在哪里见过你，你的笑容这样熟悉，我一时想不起. [Where is it? Where have I seen you? Your smile looks so familiar. But I can’t remember at all.]
Panpan Gao made a video to commemorate the event:
