On November 20, 2015, as a part of the welcome arrangements for the upcoming visit by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) hospital ship "Peace Ark" to Barbados, the Confucius Institute at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill (CI at UWI, Cave Hill) successfully held Chinese training courses for the Barbados Defense Force(BDF). As students of the first training session, twenty-five BDF army and navy officers learned Chinese language and Chinese culture at St. Anns Fort (the BDF headquarters). Senior colonel Jiang Jianrong, military attaché of the Chinese embassy to Finland, BDF colonel Wesley Beckles, and Mrs. Jennifer Hinkson, Assistant Registrar of the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, attended the opening ceremony.
CI at UWI, Cave Hill especially tailored the training program according to the itinerary of the visiting PLA Navy hospitalship. In the morning, with that particular requirement in mind, teacher Li Yanhua taught the students to master the daily expressions of Chinese language. After that, Chinese Co-Director of CI at UWI, Cave Hill, Prof. Song Qingbao briefed his students on the military rank system of the PLA, and helped them get familiar with it by doing interactive exercises in the classroom. In the afternoon, the Foreign Co-Director of the said Confucius Institute, Mr. Ché Leon C Corbin, introduced therapies of traditional Chinese medicine as well as Chinese ways of keeping good health to his interested audience. Volunteer Shi Yuchen also took the chance to arrange BDF trainees to participate in colorful interactive games, which not only animated the teaching-and-learning atmosphere at the venue, but also helped the students to put their new knowledge into practice.
Before the end of the training, Prof. Song Qingbao presented the BDF representative with souvenirs from CI at UWI, CaveHill. Colonel Beckles expressed his gratitude to the teaching staff of that Confucius Institute on behalf of BDF and hoped that there would be more such kind of trainings on Chinese language and its culture for him and his colleagues in the future.
