A Russian woman in a Mandarin contest in Shanghai was so good that she swept judges off their feet. They made an exception to the planned 12 winners (all Chinese) so she could enter the national final in Beijing, says Yang Fan.

Everyone is stunned

when Anna Shpakovskaya speaks, not because her voice is sweet and pleasant, but because the young Russian woman speaks fluent Mandarin - so fluently that even Chinese themselves might not manage it. It's so good that judges created a special, additional place to honor her.

Shpakovskaya should have been the saddest one during the final of the Shanghai Mandarin Proficiency Competition at the Phoenix Mansion Service Apartment when it was announced that only the top 12 would enter the national final - she was No. 13. But due to her superb performance, the organizing committee decided to add one more place for the national exam, lucky No. 13.

"I just want to prove that foreigners can also speak fluent Chinese," says Shpakovskaya proudly. "Most people think it's hard for foreigners to learn Chinese well, especially spoken Chinese. What I have done is to tell them that if you love it, you can do it."

The local Mandarin competition, which concluded at the end of last month, is the Shanghai preliminary for the National Mandarin Ambassador Competition. About 20,000 people - more than 70 foreigners - between 16 and 72 applied for the linguistic contest, with 280, including 20 foreigners, entering the semifinal.

Shpakovskaya, 26, a typical Russian beauty with blonde hair and blue eyes, was the only foreigner among the 20 finalists to win the Shanghai competition and she will go on to Beijing for the national final next month.

Shpakovskaya is a born language lover. After she learned Chinese at St Petersburg University for two years, she came to China. Now she not only has finished undergraduate courses in Chinese, but also has graduated from Shanghai University, majoring in linguistics.

Before the Mandarin competition, she represented Shanghai at the National Foreign Students Elocution Competition and won third place.

Besides Chinese, Shpakovskaya is also good at English and Japanese. However, every time she is praised for her language talent, Shpakovskaya shakes her head.

"I don't think I have the language talent. I need to spend the same amount of time learning a language," she says. "But I love language. That's why it's not that difficult to learn and I really enjoy it."

When Shpakovskaya heard she had just placed 13th, she couldn't help feeling deeply sad. "In any case, other participants are all native speakers. It is exceptional that a winner is a second-tongue speaker. I feel quite satisfied with my performance and the result," she says.

However, life is always full of twists and turns. The organizing committee's surprising decision was heaven for her.