News and events

January 2023 Launched a new workshop series for schools, Ni Hao, China!

2 February Refreshers' Fair and Chinese New Year at Oxford Brookes Celebration with peach blossom workshops and kung fu and Lion Dance displays.

26 February Held our second Mandarin Corner Social for Chinese language learners.

28 March Welcomed photographer Patrick Dransfield for his talk, Young Photographer in Old Beijing

30 March Invited award winning author R. F. Kuang to attend the Oxford Literary Festival with an event in conversation with Professor Angus Phillips, CIOBU Director.

18-20 April London Book Fair

18 April An Adventure with Pandas: A live, virtual visit to the Panda Park in Chengdu for UK primary school students.

5 July Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP Day) 

30 March Invited Chinese-British Author Xiaolu Guo to attend the 25th Oxford Literary Festival, taking part in an event with CIOBU Director, Professor Angus Phillips.
China Lecture: Life and Work, Xiaolu Guo Interviewed by Angus Phillips.

5 May Looking behind the curtain: from translation to publication. Author Xiang Jen Yao, translator Robert Hall and editor Angela Koo to celebrate the English edition of The Art of Chinese Living (2022).

31 May Dragon Boat Festival at the Bodleian Library, making paper zongzi, dragons and jumping frogs, and taking part in some calligraphy and Chinese character games. 

2 September Line and Texture: The Photography of Nancy Sheung at Museum of East Asian Art, curated by Dr Michael Pritchard, photographic historian, and Director of Programmes at the Royal Photographic Society, Bristol. The exhibition was supported by the Confucius Institute, Oxford Brookes University.
Line and Texture: The Photography of Nancy Sheung

22 September Discovering Sanxingdui, held in collaboration with Southwest Jiaotong University, an online event showcasing the incredible artifacts and discoveries of the ancient Chinese kingdom of Shu at the Sanxingdui museum in Sichuan, China.
Watch Discovering Sanxingdui 

29 October Joined the Oxford Brookes University Science Bazaar with workshops in Chinese language and Five Animal Tai Chi, and drop in opportunities to practice calligraphy while getting a personalised Chinese name bookmark.

1 December A Fantastic Tour of Sanxingdui, held in collaboration with Southwest Jiaotong University for students primary and secondary school students studying Mandarin, focusing on the mysterious and magnificent discoveries unearthed at Sanxingdui in China. 

19 January, Implemented the first credit course “Chinese Language and Culture” at Oxford Brookes University.

30 January, Organised the online webinar event “Chinese Tea at Oxford: Embracing Culture in the Chinese Language Classroom” to welcome the coming Spring Festival, in partnership with Macmillan Education and FLTRP.

14 February, Took part in the online celebration of Chinese New Year organised by the local Chinese community, with one dance teacher and three students performing four different types of Chinese dance “niū-niú-niǔ-niù”.

25 February, Held our first online book club session, featuring Running Through Beijing by the Chinese author Xu Zechen.

23 March, Held the first online book club public event The Worlds of Cixin Liu: Nicolas Cheetham from Head of Zeus in conversation with Angus Philips.

15 May, Collaborated with FLTRP, Macmillan Education and the International Chinese Language Education journal to host the online ‘Symposium on International Chinese Teaching in a New Era: Innovation and Quality’.

16-30 May, Held Workshop Series on International Chinese Teaching: Innovation and Quality, covering five subjects in eight sessions, in partnership with FLTRP, Macmillan Education and the International Chinese Language Education journal.

22 June, Held the first offline YCT test since the first lockdown in the UK due to the coronavirus pandemic, at Oxford High Preparatory School.

18-19 July, four students from Oxford Headington Girls’ School, recommended by CIOBU, joined the singing of "We are the World" in the 200-day countdown event to the XXIV Winter Olympic Games, which is to be held in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, Feb 2022. Attending the same event were hundreds of little cultural ambassadors from dozens of countries including Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Zimbabwe.

15 October- 17 December First joint exhibition with Photo Oxford Festival, displaying Line and Texture: The photography of Nancy Sheung (1914-1979) at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford.
The Guardian Discovering Hong Kong photographer Nancy Sheung – in pictures 

18 February, Hosted the Chinese New Year Show at the Oxford Playhouse for the third year, and over 600 people attended this event including Lord Mayor of Oxford Craig Simmons and Professor Alistair Fitt, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. Korky Paul, the well-known illustrator of Winnie the Witch, was invited to attend the event and sign sold copies of his new book Winnie and Wilbur at Chinese New Year before the show and during the interval.

17 March, all Chinese courses turned online due to the coronavirus pandemic, right after the Oxford Brookes University announced that all face-to-face teaching on the campus should be stopped.

21 April, Held the first online Tai Chi taster, which was fully booked. The online Tai Chi lessons started from 28 April 2020.

14 May-16 July, Co-organised with Macmillan Education and FLTRP to organise a webinar series on the topic of “Teaching Online and Online Teaching: Transition, Principles, Technology and Practice for Chinese Language Teachers”.

10-19 August, CIOBU students attended the first online summer camp organised by the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU).

30 October, Initiated a pilot survey on online Chinese course development in the UK, in which 12 Chinese teachers from UK Higher Education Institutions were interviewed. 

21 January, Started teaching Mandarin in the curriculum to over 50 students in Year 4, at Cutteslowe Primary School in Oxford.

30 January, Held Tai Chi, tea ceremony, calligraphy, handcraft and graffiti art workshops for students from four local schools at Oxfordshire, followed by a Chinese New Year Welcoming Performance by students both from the UK and from China’s MangoTV Little Ambassador programme.

18 February, Hosted a Chinese New Year Festival Show at Oxford Playhouse, with a full house of over 600 audience members enjoying the acrobatic performance from Kaifeng Acrobatic Group.

12 March, Co-organised the launch ceremony for the first four titles published in the academic book series Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture (English Edition), a joint project between Springer Nature and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP).

11 May, Hosted the Chinese Language Teacher Development Day at Oxford Brookes University, in collaboration with Macmillan Education, on the topic of “Teaching Chinese through Creative and Innovation Approaches”.

12-25 August, Organised the first Young Publishing Professionals Trip to China, with 12 attendees from 10 publishing companies and institutions in the UK joining the trip to Shanghai and Beijing, meeting over 100 Chinese publishers and editors from over 30 publishing houses in China.

14-26 August, Organised the Publishing Students’ Summer Camp for the second time. This time, the publishing students went to Beijing to attend the Beijing International Book Fair and visited Shaolin Temple in Henan Province.

18 August, Co-organised the “Belt and Road” 2019 Academic Publishing Symposium with Beijing Normal University, held at Beijing Normal University, China.

1 October, Launched exhibition titled Flowers and Volcanoes: An Artistic Tale of Two Post-80s Chinese Artists at the Glass Tank of Oxford Brookes University, a joint exhibition of two contemporary Chinese artists Heilichee and 19Van.

14 October, Hosted its very first academic lecture event by inviting Professor Weiwei Zhang, Director of the China Institute at Fudan University, to give a talk on The Chinese Way and the Belt and Road Initiative: a Civilizational State Perspective and have a dialogue with Professor Rana Mitter from the University of Oxford and Martin Jacques, author and senior fellow at the University of Cambridge.
XinhuaNet: Experts discuss China's development, BRI in Oxford
People’s Daily: “中华文化讲堂”在牛津布鲁克斯大学举行

26 November, Held Understanding Peking Opera Workshop and Performance at the Oxford High School, in partnership with China National Peking Opera Company and Sinolink Productions. 

18 March, Invited Chinese author Su Tong to attend the 22nd Oxford Literary Festival for a talk, and CIOBU Director Angus Phillips interviewed Su Tong at the Weston Lecture Theatre, the University of Oxford.

24 March, Zeqo Lorida, a master student from the Business School of Oxford Brookes University, represented CIOBU to take part in the 17th Chinese Bridge Competition held in the UK and won third prize in the final.

12-13 April, Co-organised the 2018 Oxford International Publishing Symposium with the Oxford International Centre for Publishing.

30 June, Attended the Oxford Festival of Arts for the first time, holding two workshops on Chinese dance.

23 July, Held contemporary woodblock print exhibition named The Soul of the Black Earth, co-presented by CIOBU and Heilongjiang Provincial Museum of Art, at the Glass Tank of Oxford Brookes University. A printmaking workshop was held before the exhibition preview.
Youtube: The Soul of the Black Earth Exhibition

16-30 August, Organised the first Publishing Students’ Summer Camp to attend the Beijing International Book Fair for Oxford Brookes publishing students.

25 October, Launched the exhibition The Door Opened: 1980s China Photography by Adrian Bradshaw at the Glass Tank, Oxford Brookes University.
Youtube: The Door Opened: 1980s China Photography Exhibition

25 February, Hosted two amazing Chinese New Year performances at Pegasus Theatre, the first time for CIOBU to celebrate the Chinese New Year with the local community.

4-6 May, Invited Ken Hom, the famous TV Chinese Chef, to give a talk on Chinese food and demonstrate Chinese cooking at the Outburst Festival, along with paper folding and cutting workshops for families.

5-6 July, Hosted the European Chinese Language Teaching Conference at St Catherine’s College, attended by more than 100 Chinese language teachers.

9-22 July, Hosted its first summer school customised for Chinese publishers in partnership with the Oxford International Centre for Publishing.

6 December, Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, Madame Liu Yandong gave a speech titled Deepening People to People Exchange and Boosting the Development of the Golden Era at the University of Oxford, over 100 CIOBU students and staff were invited to attend this important event.

7 May, First public event, Light of Civilization at Pegasus Theatre.

4-15 July, Partnered with Oxford International Centre for Publishing to host the summer school programme for publishing professionals.

6 October, Held the exhibition preview of One Step One View: Architecture Design Exhibition by Pan Gongkai at the Glass Tank of Oxford Brookes University.

19 September, Agreement was signed to establish the Confucius Institute at Oxford Brookes University (CIOBU).
BBC: New Chinese education centre opens at Oxford Brookes University (English)
BBC: 习近平走后 又一特色孔子学院英国落户 (Chinese)

24 October, CIOBU was officially established

24 October, Exhibition Wisdom from the East: Calligraphy Exhibition of Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture was held at the Glass Tank of Oxford Brookes University