【Editor’s Note: Today marks the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated with dragon boat races in honor of the ancient poet Qu Yuan. A week prior to the festival, students from globally leading universities, including Harvard University, Yale University, UC Berkeley, Nanyang Technological University, the University of Tokyo, Yonsei University, and the University of Cambridge, gathered at Zhejiang University. During the campus tour, international students enjoyed dragon and lion dances, watched traditional opera and folk music performances, and participated in calligraphy and seal-engraving workshops. These cultural activities followed their participation in the 2024 International Elite Universities Water Sports Open, held on June 1-2. Co-organized by Zhejiang University, the event featured competitions such as a 200m dragon boat race with 12 athletes and a 200m recreational kayak race. During their stay, the participants engaged in interviews conducted by ZJU Global Communications, sharing their insights on the cultural exchanges and their impacts. These interviews are featured in this edition of Dialogue@ZJU, highlighting their reflections on this enriching experience.】
Q1: Could you share your thoughts on the Dragon Boat Festival and Chinese culture?
Ruslan Pavlyshyn, University of Cambridge
"Fantastic experience. I'm so happy that I was able to join and experience the dragon boat for the first time. I've learned how to do the dragon boat race and I even came not last, but second to last in the dragon boat race. So we are very proud of our achievement and of learning about your beautiful culture and this wonderful tradition."
Joseph Edwards, Yale University
"We had an excellent time. The weather was lovely. I had never once dragon boated before in my life. So I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out we were pretty good at it. We had a lot of fun doing it. It was very tiring, but lots of fun."
Loann Marquant, Harvard University
"It's actually a very beautiful display. It's so impressive to see the dragon come to life because it's just a puppet. When the whole team is under it, it's very beautiful to see. It actually reminds me of rowing, because we are all together as a team, and we make the dragon move forward."
Sandro Scherrers, Yale University
"We've seen a dragon dance yesterday as well. So it’s really cool to experience in person, being taught by your students and knowing how it feels like. It’s a lot more exhausting and difficult than it looks like. It was a great experience."
Q2: What did you gain from these activities?
John Lian, Head Coach for the Harvard University Dragon Boat Team
"The most important thing that I think we as a team gained was just coming here to China to experience it for a lot of our teammates. (It was their) first visit and first time coming to China. A lot of them have expressed both their interest in coming, and also things that they wanted to learn about China, places that they wanted to see, food that they wanted to try. And for sure, making a lot of friendships with our local hosts, the other teams. I think, hopefully, seeing a side of China that they either didn't risk, didn't expect, or that is different than what they probably knew previously or see in the news in the United States."
Midoriko Matuzawa, The University of Tokyo
"I'm so glad to come to China because the city is very beautiful. And the people are very kind to me, and the food is also delicious. It was the good experience for me to come here."
Q3: What impressions or experiences stand out to you the most about Zhejiang University?
Loann Ethno Julien Marquant (Loann Marquant), Harvard University
"All the cultural aspects that I've discovered personally about China have been profoundly interesting to me. I've seen incredible generosity from the Chinese people and from your university. We're very grateful for that. It just reminded us of all the rich history of Chinese culture, shadow theaters, puppets and all that. And overall, we’ve learned a lot, and we're very grateful to Zhejiang University. We've been welcomed in a very good manner. We would love to come back actually and to welcome you at Harvard one day if you can come as well."
Sandro Scherrers, Yale University
"It's really cool to see the campus. Things are very green. It's really nice to see the many buildings, the lake, but also to speak to the students here, see what they're doing, how the progress is, and so on."
Renato Carregha, Yale University
"I also enjoy seeing the vitality of the campus. So many people on motorized scooters and on bicycles. You can feel it's a very lively place."
Q4: Could you share your thoughts on the cross-cultural communications?
John Lian, Head Coach for the Harvard University Dragon Boat Team
"For us to be able to come here, to make friends with Chinese teams and universities, and to have connections of our own is a really good step. I think (it’s) especially (important) for many of our students and young people to have this connection, which probably most people don't ever have a chance to get an opportunity to engage with Chinese students and Chinese universities.
I think that's a good start. I think what we could potentially do in the future (involves) things like this, with the lion dances, dragon dances going on right now. Sharing different cultural experiences and traditions is obviously good. And in the future, hopefully we'll have chances to also invite some of the Chinese teams to come to the United States and to also share what we do on our campuses. I just hope it's not a short-term communication, (but) that the connections we make will last longer. And we'll be able to come to China again and you guys to the United States when you have a chance."
Ong Kai Xuan Nicholas, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
"I think cross-cultural communication is really important, especially for things like this. Not many students get many opportunities to go overseas for exchanges, and especially in this kind of globalized world we have today. It's even more important that we get to interact with people of different cultures and understand how they think or why they think this way. It's important for all of us, especially in this globalized world today."
Loann Marquant, Harvard University
"Yesterday we visited a village and we can see dances, makeup, calligraphy as well. And that was very beautiful. And that's something I'm not used to. I'm from France originally, but I study in the US. There aren't a lot of cross-cultural aspects to Asia or Europe or America, especially with China overall. But here, these kind of experiences help us better understand each other."