Young Barbadians Showcase Mandarin Skills at Chinese Bridge Finals
The Barbados Division Finals of the Chinese Bridge Competition 2026 were held recently at the UWI Cave Hill Campus. The event, organized by the Confucius Institute, showcased students’ Mandarin language proficiency and Chinese cultural knowledge. The competition winners, including Richellia, seen ab0ve, will represent Barbados at the international Finals in China.
There were 8 primary school students, drawn from St. George Primary School, Charles F. Broome Primary School and St. Stephens Primary School; 5 secondary students from Harrison College, Queen’s College and The Alleyne School; and 3 UWI students.
Competitors introduced themselves in Mandarin, delivered prepared speeches in Mandarin, participated in a question-and-answer segment in Mandarin, and showed off their talents in martial arts (wushu), Chinese songs, calligraphy, dance and a piano recital of a traditional Chinese folk song.
Opening remarks were delivered by Counsellor Chen Chen of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Barbados and Dr. Henderson Carter, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education and Principal Investigator, Constant and Carmichael Research Project.
Judges for the competition were Xizi Yin of the Chinese Embassy, Philomena Lee of Chinese Association of Barbados and the Association for Barbados-China Friendship, Christianne A. Walcott from the Office of the Principal, UWI Cave Hill, Dan Xu, Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute and Dr. Che Corbin, Barbados Director of the Confucius Institute. The Master of Ceremonies was Confucius Institute teacher Tyrone Yearwood.
In his closing remarks Dr. Che Corbin encouraged continued development of Chinese language skills, emphasizing the importance of Chinese as an international language.
PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China
A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media.
The most visible fallout came at Tongji University, a leading Shanghai university, which removed the dean of its School of Life Science and Technology after finding academic misconduct in a Nature paper the blogger had challenged. Nankai University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Shanghai University have also opened investigations into scholars he questioned.
Bride Price and China’s Young Male Migrants
Caili, or bride price, is the money or goods a groom’s family gives to the bride’s family before marriage. It is an old Chinese custom, but in recent decades it has become one of the country’s most contentious marriage costs.
Since the 1980s, bride prices have risen sharply in many parts of rural China, driven by a skewed sex ratio rooted partly in long-held son preference, rising wedding and housing costs after market reforms, and the movement of young women from villages to richer regions. What was once a local custom has become a costly barrier to marriage, especially for young, unmarried men from rural areas who earn their living in low-paid and insecure urban jobs.
Brussels Blames China. The Data Point Elsewhere
A new, detailed analysis by the China Finance 40 Forum shows the increase in Chinese exports to Europe has been highly concentrated in a few sectors—electric vehicles, batteries, photovoltaic products, and chemicals—where Europe’s own green transition and energy shock created real demand. Meanwhile, the decline in European exports to China has not been driven mainly by a shrinking Chinese market, but by China’s industrial upgrading and import substitution.
In other words, the imbalance is not simply something China has done to Europe. It is also something Europe’s own energy costs, industrial structure, and transition choices have helped produce.
Common Prosperity, Without Illusions
Beijing’s recent call to “invest in people”（投资于人）can sound, at first, like another broad policy slogan. Li Shi’s lecture gives it a much harder meaning. For him, the phrase is not a soft add-on to growth policy, but a response to the central dilemma facing common prosperity: slower growth is making it harder to expand the pie, while entrenched gaps in income, wealth, public services, and human-capital investment are making it harder to share it fairly. His lecture therefore does two things at once. It explains why “investing in people” has become necessary, and then turns the slogan into a concrete reform agenda — higher household incomes, more support for low-income families, hukou and education reform, fairer public services, and, finally, freedom.
Lionel Messi is a fan of Yerba mate. But Chinese may be drinking it wrong | South China Morning Post
The consumption of Ilex paraguariensis – known as “yerba mate” in South America – has spread beyond the borders of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and is now gaining popularity in China.
“Our exports have doubled since last year,” said Juan Luis Lorenzo, a local producer involved in the direct exports of yerba mate to China.
The increase in exports by Lorenzo’s cooperative reflects the broader rise in yerba mate exports from Argentina to China, which have increased by 88 per cent since 2021, according to Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census.
As the United States experiences a brain drain, Europe is emerging as a key research partner for China as both benefit from an influx of young scientists from America.
Rapid changes in geopolitics have brought “massive changes in the global flow of talent”, according to Patrick Cramer, the president of Germany’s Max Planck Society, a leading research body in Europe.
“These are exactly the questions that I think about all day,” Cramer said during an interview in Shenzhen.
This weekly newsletter is put together by DeLisle Worrell, President of the ABCF. Visit us at Association for Barbados China Friendship | (abcf-bb.com).
Thanks to everyone who sent contributions for this week’s Update. Please send items of interest to me via the contact page at ABCF-BB.com or to info@DeLisleWorrell.com
The ABCF mission is to build a deeper understanding between the Chinese people and Barbadians and Caribbean people from all walks of life. The association’s focus is on personal experiences, people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and exchanges of ideas, and the facilitation of travel, business and study. From the outset we aim to learn from and build on the experiences of the Caribbean and China, and to develop mutual understandings and support that will be to the benefit of both sides.
