On March 27, the 6th Qingdao-Long Beach Online Pen Pal Exchange Program for University Students concluded successfully. Faculty and student representatives from our university were invited to attend the online award ceremony. Yue Lihong, Vice President of QUT, attended the ceremony and delivered a speech. Representatives from the Office of International Affairs and the School of Humanities and Foreign Languages, along with our university’s award-winning students, participated in the online ceremony in Conference Room 301 of the Comprehensive Service Center. The ceremony also featured online participation from Consul Yang Lijun of the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, Ding Anhui, Deputy Director of the Qingdao Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, Susan Redfield, Chair of the Long Beach-Qingdao Sister City Committee, leaders from Qingdao Port, as well as faculty and student representatives from California State University, Long Beach, and other partner institutions.
The Qingdao-Long Beach Online Pen Pal Exchange Program for University Students was jointly initiated by the Qingdao Municipal Foreign Affairs Office and the Long Beach-Qingdao Sister City Committee. Since its launch in 2020, our university, as the only participating university from Qingdao, has taken part in the program for six consecutive years. The program has built a bridge for student international exchanges, set a new example for China-U.S. people-to-people and cultural exchanges, particularly among youth, and become a new hallmark of friendly interactions between the sister cities of Qingdao and Long Beach. From October to November 2025, the program recruited students from our university, California State University, Long Beach, and City College of California. A total of 56 students from our university were successfully paired with students from California as pen pals. During the program, participants engaged in online cross-cultural thematic exchanges in various areas, including food, festivals, photography, beauty, fashion, travel, and film production, forging valuable friendships and exchange experience.
The program’s organizing committee established seven awards: First Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize, Best Communication Award, Most Creative Award, Best Quality Award, and Best Relevance Award. After evaluation by the judging committee, our university’s students stood out among the Chinese-American pairs by virtue of their solid professional competence and cross-cultural communication skills, successfully winning six of the seven awards. The Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, the Long Beach-Qingdao Sister City Committee, and the participating Chinese and American universities all spoke highly of the competition.
List of Award Winners:
First Prize: Gabriel Lopez & Vycharika Sovath
Second Prize: Dong Wenhui (School of Humanities and Foreign Languages)
Third Prize: Lan Menghan (School of Humanities and Foreign Languages)
Most Creative Award: Li Yingying (School of Humanities and Foreign Languages)
Best Relevance Award: Zhang Yiting (School of Humanities and Foreign Languages)
Best Quality Award: Zhou Wenhao (School of Information and Control Engineering)
Best Communication Award: Ning Wenxiao (School of Humanities and Foreign Languages)
(Reported by: Gong Tianchi; Photographed by: Wang Yunxia; Reviewed by: Jia Yuyue)