Zhang Kexin, an undergraduate student from the University of Macau’s (UM) Department of Portuguese, recently won the sole award in the first-year category of the prestigious Tomás Pereira Prize, which is awarded annually to the best Chinese university students of Portuguese language studies, based on the results of written and oral examinations. The Tomás Pereira Prize comes in four categories, namely first-year category, second-year category, third-year category, and fourth-year category, with only one awardee for each category.

The competition was initiated by the Embassy of Portugal in Beijing in 2015 in collaboration with the University of Aveiro, the University of Lisbon, the University of Coimbra, and the University of Porto. This year’s competition attracted 97 participants, twice the number of last year, from 20 institutions in 13 cities and provinces, namely Harbin, Dalian, Tianjin, Beijing, Xian, Jilin, Zhejiang, Hebei, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Sichuan, Guangzhou, and Macao.

The prize is named after Tomás Pereira, a Portuguese Jesuit who worked as a personal tutor, advisor, and translator to the Kangxi Emperor. Pereira is considered the most important person of the 17th century in China-Portugal relations and a pioneer in Sino-Europe cultural exchange.