As a new PhD student at UCAS, I was so honored to be nominated by the international college to represent UCAS at the 6^th China-African Youth Festival which was held in the China Soong Ching Ling Science & Culture Center for young people, in Beijing from 18th October 2021 to 22nd October 2021. It included about 47 African youths and more than 30 Chinese youths.  The festival was filled with very fascinating events to make our days better and cultivate the main goal of the festival. Which was “to revisit the CPC’s movement on developing China and strengthen the China-Africa relationship”. My burning desire of what would happen within the five days of the event was quenched by a warmly welcoming dinner on the arrival day, followed by a small game Blind porker game to enable all participants interact with each other. The following days were filled with well-organized events and visits to very memorable and educative places in Beijing. This included round table meeting between African and Chinese youths to discuss about China-Africa relationship, had the unique opportunity to learn beautiful Chinese culture such as Beijing Opera which was introduced to us by the Dan, Old way of binding Chinese books using rope and learning how to write shufa （书法）. 

The most captivating visit was to the Yanqing Winter Olympic Training base where we experienced hard work and intensive preparation of Chinese for the coming Olympic winter competition in Feb 2022. It was the first time for me to step in the skating ground, it was funny and a unique experience for sure. I couldn’t walk with the skating shoes on the ground, in the beginning we were just felling down like crippled, eventually we managed to walk but when holding small chairs. 

 The fourth day was a remarkable journey to Lipao village, it was a big lesson for us African youths to experience how Lipao people managed to change their lives only by cultivating and selling apples. It is through dedication and hard work, they have built good apartments for themselves through selling apples, now they have shifted from traditional to modern and greenhouse farming. I can say they are rich people on their own way and self-satisfactory on their needs. As African youths, we saw an example to copy so as to utilize well the natural and good fertile African soils for developing our continent, the way Lipao did.  

Our visit to the Huawei Exhibition Beijing Center opened our eyes on the cutting-edge Huawei technology especially in education and automatic driverless car system. The invention of smart boards which are imbedded with AI will totally change the delivery of education, and ease the teaching job for teachers. It supports direct hand writing on the board, drawing figures and cleaning using the bare hand. Strange enough it can change the hand written words to computer alphanumeric characters fonts. When fully implemented It will totally eradicate the use of chalks in teaching.

Moreover, we visited the Communist Part of China (CPC) museum to experience the struggle and success of the CPC. It so educative visit, where among other things we saw the original sample of sand from the moon, and the model of the satellite at its full size.  

We real learnt fundamental matters to strengthen China – Africa relationship, the effort done by CPC to shift China from a poor to a very high industrial and economical country.  Generally, I can say “When you speak about China development, you speak about CPC”.

Frank (a UCAS representative) sharing his views on the argument “Which global issue should be handled first between unemployment and climate change?” this was among the introductory events to remind ourselves about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  It was very captive to engage, interact and get familiar to each other on the first day of the event.

We enjoyed the Beijing opera show on the open ceremony day

In Opera cultural actions, we learnt self-defense using the arrows. The trainer is the Dan (The woman with strict moral code) in white top dress

Frank with other African youths at the Status of the Great Chinese leaders (In CPC museum) who are the initiators of the political and economic stability of China. Mao Zedong at the middle and others

Frank at the modern apple farms at  Lipao village, Badaling Town, Yangqing District, Beijing. The visit to Lipao was a transformation of our minds to embrace the land, use it with dedication to feed others and develop ourselves through farming.

Frank together with other youths eating and enjoying after visiting the farms at Lipao village. It was out time to taste the delicious apples from Lipao Farms.

Frank (in the middle) learning Shufa (书法 ) writing from Chinese youth. It was good experience and joyful moment to learn and be happy together with Chinese youth.

Frank on the left bottom photo sharing his opinion on “What have African youths learnt from CPC movements in developing China and how they can transform this to Africa? “. In the conference at the Soong Ching Ling’s former residence. The right bottom photo is Frank with the former ambassador of Tanzania miss Wang Ke, soon after the conference.

On the last day we paid our visit to the Soong Ching Ling’s former residence.  We were introduced to the great sacrifices Madam Soong Ching Ling did for China, her love to children and strengthening international relationship. Lastly, we were given such a great respect of attending the conference at that memorial residence. We had an opportunity to meet and discuss with the former ambassador of China in Tanzania miss Wang Ke and other leaders 

Written by: Frank Kulwa Nkulila.