International students team up for Olympic song

More than 100 international students at Chinese universities from more than 50 countries have recorded a song, When the Ice is Shinning, to convey their best wishes for the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics.

The five-minute bilingual song, in Chinese and English, was recorded separately by students from different cities and later mixed together.

The tune was composed by Shin Moon-sub, a South Korean student, with the Chinese lyrics written by Chinese student Zhang Haomiao and the English ones by Francisco Arriaga Gomez from Mexico. They are all studying at Shenzhen University and are members of the Study in China Cloud Chorus.

Part of the lyrics go:

Beijing is waiting for you all. Get united under this light.

Be a part of this brotherhood, sharing the spirit, competing together just as one.

Raise your glass, reach the stars, follow our dreams, it is in our hands.

Light the torch, so we can begin, memories to be made.

Shin said he has a special affinity with songs for the Olympics because the theme song Hand in Hand for the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul had warmed the hearts of many and was still highly relevant today.

He also liked the theme song for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, You and Me, which had a more soothing, warmer rhythm that touched people's hearts, he said.

Composing a song for the Beijing Winter Olympics was one of his major plans last year, and he wanted to bring warmth, courage and strength to people around the world who are still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, he told People's Daily.

Shin started composing the song in March and asked for Zhang's help with its Chinese lyrics because his Chinese was not good enough.

The Olympics is a global sports event, so it is very fitting to have international students from all over the world record the song, he added.

Hannah Robinson, who is studying at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, Jilin province, and hails from the United States, said just like the Games' slogan "Together for a shared future", the Olympic Games represent humanity's yearning for peace and solidarity.

"Finishing this song with students from many countries has also made me feel the strength of solidarity," she said.