A Gold Pen Award (金筆獎) presentation ceremony has been held to honour students from Hong Kong and the Mainland to foster the spirits of traditional Chinese virtues and values.
The 2024 Gold Pen Award on penmanship for primary and secondary students on virtues of filial piety and fraternal care was jointly organised by Hong Kong Rosamond Foundation (香港洛士文基金) and other groups including We Like Hong Kong, Hong Kong Shanxi Chamber of Commerce (香港山西總會) and Hong Kong-Guizhou Cultural Exchange Fund (香港貴州文化交流基金).
The ceremony was held at the Sheung Wan Civic Centre on June 25 this year.
More than 40,000 primary and secondary students, including non-Chinese speaking students, from over 300 schools have joined the award contest – with students’ participation numbers hitting a new record. The Gold Pen Award has been listed as one of the key youths’ community events in the Greater Bay Area under China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (中國宋慶齡基金會) and it has been classified as an outstanding community project.
The establishment of the Gold Pen Award aims to promote the exemplary art of Chinese penmanship with meticulousness, letting young people develop positive values by studying Confucian classics and literature.
Apart from awards for local students, there are special awards designated for non-Chinese speaking students and that will further encourage them to study and gain understanding on traditional Chinese culture. Also, students from schools in the Mainland have participated in the contest for the first time this year.
With the staunch support and invitation from local schools, students from the sister schools in the Mainland have taken part into the contest. More than 500 students from schools in Beijing, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Sichuan and other cities in the Greater Bay Area have joined the competition. It has paved the way for the Gold Pen Award to be elevated to become a national-scale event in the near future.
Delivering a speech at the Gold Pen Award’s presentation ceremony, Professor Herman Hu Shao-ming, who is Founding President of Hong Kong Rosamond Foundation and a Hong Kong Deputy to the National People’s Congress, said it is worthwhile for students to garner more understanding on traditional Chinese culture and prideful national spirits as well as the history of the country.
This year, the Gold Pen Award has been held for the third consecutive time.
Amidst the Chinese virtues of benevolence and propriety as well as loyalty and righteousness which have been highlighted in the award previously, Professor Hu said the themes of filial piety and fraternal care are epitomized in the contest this year.
Professor Hu expressed hopes that students can learn respecting and taking good care of their parents as well as loving and caring for their siblings.
During an online address to the ceremony, Undersecretary for Education Sze Chun-fai said that the virtues of filial piety and fraternal care highlighted in the contest has been in line with important values promoted to students by the Education Bureau.
At the ceremony, Chairman of Hong Kong Shanxi Chamber of Commerce Ng Tang has encouraged students to enrich their understanding and knowledge in Chinese culture.
Founding President of Hong Kong-Guizhou Cultural Exchange Fund Ching Yin, who is also a local delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), highly praised the performance of junior primary school students who have demonstrated their top-notch technique in the art of Chinese writing.
One of the contest’s judging panel members from China Calligraphers Association Hong Kong Branch (中國書協香港分會) appreciated the works of participating students and stressed that local students have been dedicated to learning the art of calligraphy.
The judging panel also praised the outstanding performance of some non-Chinese speaking students in the competition.
The Organizing Committee of the Gold Pen Award will srtive to further expand the scale of the contest and invite more students from Macao, Taiwan and overseas places to join, thereby fulfilling the mission of spreading the invaluable wisdom and spirits of Chinese culture.
All images are from Hong Kong Rosamond Foundation.