Xi reviews Hungarian guard of honor

hinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday reviewed the Hungarian guard of honor, accompanied by Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok at a welcome ceremony held in Budapest.

Sulyok and his wife, together with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his wife, warmly welcomed Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at the Buda Castle.

Xi, who arrived in Budapest late on Wednesday, is paying his first state visit to Hungary at the invitation of Sulyok and Orban.

Hungary is the last stop of Xi's three-nation European tour from May 5 to 10, which has already taken him to France and Serbia.

The 23rd "Chinese Bridge" -- a Chinese language proficiency competition for foreign college students -- was held in the Capitol Hill Campus of the University of Liberia in Monrovia, capital of Liberia, last Friday.

Nearly 300 people, including the finalists participating in the competition, Chinese Ambassador to Liberia Yin Chengwu, officials from the Liberian government, representatives from local Chinese-funded companies and institutions and students and teachers from the Confucius Institute at the University of Liberia, were present at this event.

The Liberia division finals of this year's "Chinese Bridge" competition covered speech, Q and A sessions over Chinese culture and a talent show.

In the competition, the finalists staged performances such as Wushu (martial arts), traditional Chinese opera, classical Chinese dance and Chinese poetry recitation to showcase their gasp of Chinese culture.

The contest concluded with a contestant dubbed "Ming Juan" being declared the winner. The winner will later represent the country to compete at the global contest in China.

Since its inception in 2002, the Chinese Bridge program has seen the participation of more than 1.5 million young people from more than 160 countries in the overseas preliminaries, and more than 7,000 outstanding contestants have been invited to China to participate in the global finals. The competition has become a popular international event among Chinese language learners worldwide.