On the 16th of October 2019 the University of Silesia hosted a delegation from Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). This foreign university is one of the first Chinese partners of the University of Silesia. For more than ten years the two universities have undertaken a number of joint initiatives, and the cooperation between them has been continuously developed. The exchange of students and lecturers is only one of its aspects. Currently, the two universities are preparing publication of the first ever textbook for teaching Polish as a foreign language addressed to a Chinese-speaking recipient. The authors of the publication on the part of the University of Silesia are: Prof. Jolanta Tambor, Dr Barbara Morcinek-Abramczyk, Dr Anna Gałęziowska-Krzystolik and Dr Agnieszka Tambor.
The visit of the representatives of the Chinese university at the University of Silesia was, among others, an opportunity to talk about the possibility to promote Chinese editions of Olga Tokarczuk’s works, prepared by Prof. Yi Lijun – a longtime head of Polish studies at the BFSU. This form of popularization of the novels by the Polish Nobel Prize winner may contribute to the increase of foreign literature readership, which is extremely important in China.
Additionally, the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture and the Center for Polish Studies at the BFSU will be carrying out a student translation project involving translation of the most interesting quotations from Olga Tokarczuk’s novels into Chinese.
The meeting was attended by Prof. Wang Dinghua, President of the BFSU Senate, Prof. Ke Jing, Director of the Department of International Cooperation, Prof. Jin Limin, Director of the Office of Confucius Institutes at BFSU, Zheng Dapeng, Deputy Director of the Rector’s Office, and Prof. Zhao Gang, Dean of the Department of European Languages and Cultures.
The Polish side was represented by: Assoc. Prof. Tomasz Pietrzykowski, Professor of the University of Silesia – Vice-Rector for Domestic and International Cooperation, Prof. Jolanta Tambor – the Plenipotentiary of the Rector for Foreign Students Affairs, the director of the School of Polish Language and Culture, Dr Agnieszka Tambor, the head of the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture at the University of Silesia, and Agata Wójcik, the head of the International Relations Department, Giga Gogosashvili from the International Development Office and Jakub Zwierzchowski representing the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Silesia.