Int'l students win national top prize with video blending Ming art & flower festival

Recently, the winners of the 2025 6th National Exhibition Planning & Creativity Competition were announced. A video work titled "Han Palace Spring: New Chapters of Ancient Rhyme in Huazhao Festival" stood out and won the first prize.

This work was jointly created by a team of Chinese and international students majoring in Digital Media Technology at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology.They captured the beauty of traditional Chinese culture through their lens, combining the Ming Dynasty masterpiece "Han Palace Spring" with the poetry of the Huazhao Festival, performing a youthful dialogue across time and space on actual campus locations. We interviewed two international students from the team—SWARNA KARTIKA from Indonesia and SERGINA ELIZAVETA from Russia.

Talking about the original intention of creation, Swarna told our reporter that the competition theme was "Chinese Traditional Festivals," and team members from different countries were all particularly curious about traditional Chinese culture. "However, many people only know about the Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival but rarely understand the gentle and poetic Huazhao Festival." The Huazhao Festival, on the 15th day of the second lunar month, is traditionally celebrated as the Birthday of All Flowers. Swarna and her team wanted to use the lens to convey the beauty of the Festival, the ancients' love for flowers, and the sense of spring outings, "so that more students and foreign friends can feel that traditional Chinese festivals are not just lively but also delicate and romantic."

The other award winner, Seregina, drew inspiration from Chinese legends. She recalled that after arriving in China, West Lake quickly became her favorite place, where she often went for walks, relaxation, and tranquility. Later, her Chinese teacher told the class the legend of Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian, and she was fascinated. "Suddenly the lake I already loved had a deeper meaning--the Broken Bridge, the Leifeng Pagoda, everything came alive." This blend of personal connection and beautiful legend subtly influenced her understanding of "Han Palace Spring," leading her to focus more on presenting the poetry and romance of Chinese culture during the creative process.

The filming process was not without challenges. Swarna recalled that what impressed her most was that everyone, despite coming from different cultural backgrounds, wore Hanfu and sang and danced together in the campus pavilion, freely running through the tea garden. "It was a hot summer day, but the dedication and hard work of the team were what made this video come through." She specifically mentioned that Chinese students joined them, teaching the international students how to dress in Hanfu and experiencing the poetic and romantic essence of traditional festivals together. "I truly felt that culture knows no borders and beauty can be understood and loved by everyone. That sincerity, transcending national boundaries and solely for the common presentation of traditional culture, particularly moved me."

Seregina, on the other hand, felt the fusion of history and reality during filming. "Standing on the Broken Bridge, looking at Leifeng Pagoda--I could feel the story around me. History and legend truly exist in the same space here, and that was remarkable to me." This overlap of space and legend gave her a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and added emotional depth to her performance.

Congratulations to Swarna and Elizaveta! And we look forward to more international friends telling Chinese stories through their own eyes, in their own ways.
Source: Hangzhoufeel