Two competitions were held in Shanghai on Sunday for foreign students to show off their Chinese language skills.

A poem and prose recital at Fudan University attracted more than 150 students from 37 countries, who are studying at 21 universities in the city. Their performances were recorded and posted online for public voting.

Some of the performers surprised the host, local TV presenter Luo Xin, as they spoke Mandarin so well that he believes they could pass the test for TV or radio hosts.

Pavel Karelin, a 21-year-old Russian student at Fudan, won first prize in the individual category, while a team of eight Malaysian students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University won the group category.

Karelin recited “Homeland, My Dear Homeland” by Shu Ting.

“I like this poem because it expresses my love for both Russia and China,” he said.

Karelin started learning Chinese when he was a child as he saw a lot of Chinese people doing business in Russia.

“I did not learn well during my childhood,” he said. “But when I got into university, I decided to learn Chinese again because I think it can help me a lot in my career.”

“I watched videos of other competitors and found they were excellent, so I practiced a lot,” he said.

Karelin plans to apply for a masters program at Fudan and is considering staying in China for work after graduation.

Another Chinese speech contest took place at New York University Shanghai.

Foreign students from 11 universities in Shanghai and Jiangsu Province competed in elementary, intermediate and advanced levels on the topic of the Chinese word “lu,” or road.

Mizi Park from Donghua University won first prize in the advanced class. Park, 25, said she watches a lot of Chinese movies and TV series and studied Chinese for four years in South Korea.

“I always force myself to communicate in Chinese, instead of English or Korean, whether it's a simple word or a difficult sentence,” she said.