Foreign students build friendships through dragon boat race in Shanghai

A dragon boat contest for foreign students was held on the Fengxian campus of East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai on Saturday, celebrating the traditional Chinese festival with fun.

The contest, named "Paddling through Culture, Embracing the Dragon Boat Festival", gathered 716 foreign students from 32 universities, including Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Tongji University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Zhu Weihong, vice-president of East China University of Science and Technology, said that the dragon boat contest has become a bond of friendship, a platform to enhance exchanges, and a bridge to connect the minds of overseas students from all over the world.

"Through the competition, students demonstrate the sportsmanship of unity, hard work, and courage to move forward," he said. "Meanwhile, they gain friendship."

The competition continued the tradition and adopted a mixed men's and women's 200-meter straight track racing system. After intense competition in the preliminaries and finals, the Fudan University team won first prize, Zhejiang University and East China Normal University won second prize, teams from Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai Normal University, and Shanghai University of Electric Power won third prize.