On May 27th, the finals of Yichang’s Third Recitation Competition was held on the South Central Campus of Wujiagang District Experimental Primary School, as one of the Poetic Yichang series of cultural activities at 2018 Qu Yuan’s Hometown Dragon Boat Festival, at which 81 programs selected from the preliminaries were staged and 394 players showed their talents.

　　It is reported that 2,065 people enrolled for the competition this year, including those contestants from all the counties and cities of Yichang and those poetry and recitation lovers from Wuhan and Xiangyang. And the age span of the participants is further increased, with the youngest being only 3 years old and the oldest 83. The event also attracted many disabled and foreign friends.

　　The final events are still divided into two categories: individual and group. Individual events are further divided into 3 groups: adults, primary and secondary school students; group events are participated by four kinds of people, namely, adults, families, primary and secondary school students, with the family group being the biggest highlight of this year. More families enrolled for the group event and they brought a variety of programs in the form of either parent-child combination or that made up of three generations, which created a strong family atmosphere.

　　The 83-year-old Wang Huaiwen has long dreamed of three generations’ performing on the same stage. This time he took his wife, three daughters, and one grandson here to recite the poem Yichang, Where The Dream Begins. Pride, a Cameroon student from China’s Three Gorges University, who performed Qu Yuan’s Ju Song at the 2nd Recitation Competition last year, recited Su Shi’s Prelude to Water Melody: When the Moon Puts up together with his classmates from 5 different countries this year.

　　It is understood that the results of the finals will be announced on a separate day and those excellent programs will be performed at the Dragon Boat Festival in Qu Yuan's hometown. (Reporter: Huang Chunmei)