Taiwan will touch your heart!” This is a sentence from the lyrics of the theme song for the Peking University Cross-strait Culture Exchange Association (CCEA). Established in 2002, CCEA is a student association aimed at enhancing cross-straits exchanges and promoting mutual understanding. CCEA has won the title of “Top Ten Outstanding Associations” among almost 300 student associations in PKU, which is a distinct honor. To date, it has over 3000 members, including 700 Taiwanese students, 1800 Mainland students, and over 300 students from Hong Kong, Macao and foreign countries.
As one of the most active associations of PKU, CCEA has held numerous activities since its establishment, among which visits to Taiwan and the Taiwan Gourmet Festival are the two highlight activities of CCEA. Every year, a few outstanding PKU students, selected by CCEA, are organized into a delegation to visit Taiwan. In Taiwan, they communicate with local students, enjoy the beautiful scenery Taiwan has to offer, and visit famous universities, which is a great opportunity to learn about the culture, history and traditions of Taiwan. The other highlight of the club’s activities, Taiwan Gourmet Festival is also highly spoken of by PKU students. CCEA invites chefs from Taiwan to serve exquisite snacks to the students. Last year, the Taiwan Gourmet Festival was held on the second floor of Xue Wu Canteen on campus. Pineapple pastry, meatball soup, nougat, white gourd tea and many other delicious Taiwanese snacks was served at the canteen.
CCEA has held a lot of activities that evoked great enthusiasm among PKU students in 2013, especially the one on October 26th——inviting the famous actress and singer Rene Liu Ruoying to deliver a speech under the title of “the bitterness and happiness on the road towards my dream”.
Born in Taiwan, Rene enjoys fame in both Taiwan and the Mainland. After successfully portraying the character that crazes about marriage in the popular TV series “Pink Lady”, Rene has become even more widely known as an accomplished Taiwan film actress. Apart from her talented performing skills, however, she’s also highly revered for her talents as the pop singer. Fans give the nickname of “Milk Tea” to Rene due to her soft and mellow songs containing a creamy sense of nostalgia and sad romance. Her struggle, sticking to the power of dream and comprehension of life give youngsters an inspiring force. In her speech, she shared with the audience about her pilgrimage and her interpretation of dream and love. The audience also demonstrated hot fascination.
On that night, Rene talked about her stories of her school years, the hardship she experienced as a singer and the influences of her grandparents. When asked about her understanding of what it means to have dreams, she said: “[To] dream is staying with the thing you love. Because of my love for music, I sing with perseverance, and never think of giving up, no matter how many failures and taunt I’ve been through. Because for me, to persist is hard, but to give up would be miserable.” Rene also told the words on the cover of one of her albums: “When a veteran recalls the achievement throughout his life, he will not count how many battles he won, but will roll up his sleeves and tell the stories of all the scars on his arms.” She encouraged students to make attempts bravely when young, and said that her life have just began, which aroused strong resonance among the audience. Later on, Rene told the stories between herself and her friends, which was trivial but full of tender feelings. “The world is not beautiful. But if there is someone be with you and give you warmth, it’s a kind of beauty.” She believed that sincerity and tolerance were essential to all kinds of relationships.
After her speech, Rene carefully answered the questions raised by the audience. At last, she led the whole audience to sing her signature tune, infusing the classroom infusing warmth into the heart of the people.
Apart from Rene’s lecture, CCEA also held other activities like Four Region Youth Forum, providing a platform for young people from Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to discuss current affairs in the areas of culture, economy, education and society. Taiwan Film Appreciation and Southern Fujian Dialect Lectures are another two traditional activities of CCEA. Last semester, CCEA has screened several Taiwan films such as Chicken Chop Hero, Hear Me and Girlfriend, Boyfriend. In addition, the club held Southern Fujian Dialect Lectures to provide students with opportunities to learn Southern Fujian Dialect.
Like the words in its theme song: “Taiwan will touch your heart,” members of CCEA always try their best to make mainland students experience and understand the Taiwanese culture. Indeed, a lot of students have fallen in love with Taiwan, the small and beautiful island, from the bottom of their hearts.
Written by Wang Yawen
Updated by June 5,2014
