On October 24, 2016, a delegation of Costa Rican universities, led by Professor Andres Morera, visited Peking University (PKU). The delegation included representatives from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica (ULatina), Veritas University, and Universidad de Iberoamerica. They were warmly received at Linhuxuan by Li Yansong, Vice-President of PKU and Li Shujing, Deputy-Dean of the PKU School of Foreign Languages. Ricardo J. León P., Ambassador of Costa Rica to People’s Republic of China, also attended the event.
The focus of the meeting was to develop further corporation between PKU and Costa Rican universities. Ambassador León mentioned that there existed an imbalance of understanding between China and Costa Rica. PKU was renowned in the eyes of Costa Rican students for its leading position in Chinese academia. However, Chinese students’ knowledge of Costa Rica, and Latin America in general, remained limited. Hence Mr. León would like to promote the collaboration between Costa Rican and Chinese universities in order to build mutual friendships and to cultivate closer relationships between the two countries. He expressed strong interest in partnering with PKU and setting Asia, in particular, China, as their next exchange platform.
At the meeting, Professor Morera and Vice-President Li discussed possible prospects of future cooperation. A viable starting point would be a faculty-led, joint summer Spanish course between Costa Rican universities and PKU. As Spanish remained one of the most spoken languages in the world, Spanish stood as the third largest department at the School of Foreign Languages of PKU. Not only could Costa Rica provide an environment encouraging linguistic learning, but it could also encompass a rich Hispanic culture that would broaden the horizons of Spanish-major students. In addition, the faculty-led feature of the program would foster a sense of company to students studying abroad, allowing them to reach out in the new study environment. Professor Morera and Vice-President Li also raised the possibility of extending the program to students who were not Spanish majors but wished to explore Hispanic culture.
The meeting concluded on an interactive information session between the Costa Rican delegation and PKU students who attended the session with great curiosity and enthusiasm. Many expressed that this session was the very first channel that gave them an insight into Costa Rica, a country that they found intriguing.
Written by: Ji Caixuan
Edited by: Li Ruoxue
