The 2 Chinese Bridge-Chinese proficiency competition for foreign secondary students and the 8th Chinese Bridge-Chinese proficiency competition for university students were held in Stockholm for the first time on Wednesday.

Three Swedish students recite a poem in Chinese during the Bridge-Chinese proficiency competition held in Stockholm on April 29, 2009.

The preliminary competition in Sweden was jointly held by the Chinese Embassy in Sweden and the Nordic Confucious School.

A total of 36 middle school students and 10 university students participated in the competition.

Chinese education councilor Zhang Ning said that all those who participated in the competition would win a prize since the principle is that friendship is number one and the competition is number two. He said that about 10 universities and 40 schools in Sweden have opened Chinese subject.

Confucious school director Bjorn Roden said that compared with the time when he began to study Chinese in 1968, the condition is much better now. Students can go to China easily, and the establishment of Confucious school has substantially facilitated studying Chinese while many Swedish Universities also opened Chinese subject. Chinese is even popular in senior high schools in Sweden. Hopefully Chinese will become as popular as English, French and Spanish in Sweden.

The students gave a speech in Chinese about how they began to learn, love and study Chinese language and culture. They also gave a performance about Chinese art such as singing, dancing and Kongfu.

Chinese ambassador Chen Mingming issued the prizes to all the students.

Those who won the prize will get the first Chinese Ambassador awards which is a scholarship for students to study one year in China. Those who won the first prize will go to Chinese to participate in the final competition and those who won the excellent awards will have a chance to visit China for cultural activities for a short period.