5th Round of 18th Chinese Bridge Competition Finals Kicks off

　　The 5th round of the 18th Chinese Bridge Competition finals kicked off in Changsha on August 9. After taking their cultural tours, the top 15 contestants continued to compete in a new round of cultural exchanges.

　　This year's Chinese Bridge competition innovatively adopted Sudoku and Vlog to put forward questions. The finals have eight rounds. Li Rui and Jin Mengjia from Hunan TV were the hosts. Zhao Dongmei, professor of Peking University, was the judge.

　　The top 15 contestants need to answer 15 questions in each of the 5th, 6th and 7th rounds. Their accumulated score will fuel them to compete in the 8th round. The 5th round competition includes 3 parts: Listening Test; Sudoku of Chinese Characters; and, Touring around China.

　　In the listening part, contestants were asked a choice question about a very complicated Chinese sentence, concerning Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü, fictional protagonists of the wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong. Yang Jinyu from Thailand chose the right answer and introduced the story of Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü to the contestants.

　　In the Chinese characters part, contestants learnt a poem by Lu You, a prominent poet of China's Southern Song Dynasty, through interesting questions.

　　In the “Touring around China” part, contestants watched a video of the Chinese Bridge Competition 2014 Champion David. Through the video, they visually “visited” Beijing, a famous historical and cultural city. They enjoyed traditional Chinese arts like tea making and opera highlights, and learned about tea culture and Chinese opera. Shi Yu, an Egyptian student, staged a live performance of the Huangmei opera “The Emperor's Female Son-in-law” and won rounds of applause.

　　Finally, Lin Xia from Madagascar and Jia Song from the UK tied for the first place. Next, the top 15 contestants will face more intense competitions.