On the afternoon of September 25th, the 2021 Consular Protection Sitcom Final entitled "Motherland Backing You Up" was successfully concluded at the National Theater of China.

The competition was jointly sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, Office of Beijing Civility Enhancement Committee, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality under the guidance of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China. Under the theme "Helping Each Other for Safer Trips," the competition spread consular protection stories, promoted consular protection knowledge and conveyed the warmth and care of the capital via sitcoms and scene recreations.

Consular protection means conveying warmth to the people. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the Foreign Affairs Office further carries out the principle of "Addressing the Practical Concerns of the Masses” and fulfills the concept of "Dedication to Serving the People.” Beijing strives to make consular protection publicity more targeted and effective to cover more people and hold themed events including sitcoms competitions, consular protection publicity month, and monthly lectures with the service menu model in order to improve the brand of “Beijing Consular Protection” and effectively enhancing the overseas security awareness and capacity of the citizens and institutions in Beijing.

Tense Atmosphere of the Competition

Since its official launch on April 28th, the competition has received widespread attention with enthusiastic participants from universities, enterprises and citizen art groups in Beijing. The influence of the event also spread to other provinces and cities in China. Even overseas Chinese teams registered to participate for the first time.

Those wonderful plays were in various forms, including the recreation of the scenes where consular workers working at the front line fighting against the epidemic, the interesting interpretation of wisdom against fraud; and the warm rescue stories brought by the community seniors which were both down-to-earth and educational. All the plays vividly expressed the love of families and country as well as the responsibility in the consular protection work. After being reviewed by the expert team, 6 teams entered the final round.

“Country”

“Veterans, Let's Go Home”

"Don't Be Afraid, Motherland is Backing You Up"

"Let's Go Home"

"Well-Paid Job to Jail"

"Scam Prevention"

Clear theme telling China's story well through hot spot issues. The plays in the final round were closely related to the current events, including consular protection, anti-epidemic and anti-fraud, which made the audience feel that consular protection will back Chinese citizens up wherever they go, and the consular protection staff always care about the people.

Combine training and competition, create "training sessions" for the sitcom competition. Experts from various related fields joined hands to provide online and offline training for several rounds, which aimed not only to check the accuracy of knowledge, but also to provide one-on-one guidance from national artists such as Du Ninglin, Zang Jinsheng and Lei Ruiqin to help the participating teams to make their works more professional and improve artistic expressions.

Fun and educational, be ready to get tested on the consular protection knowledge. The finals also set up an interactive session to ask the audience about the consular protection knowledge reflected in the drama, guiding them to learn and apply consular protection knowledge to their daily life, and strive to be honorable consular protection promoters and practitioners of overseas security.

After a fierce competition, "Country" by China Foreign Affairs University won the first prize with its moving plot and consummate performance skills which won the hearts of all the judges. "Veterans, Let's Go Home" by the Second Affiliated High School of Beijing Normal University and "Don't Be Afraid, Motherland is Backing You Up" by Sichuan International Studies University's won the second prize. “Let's go home" by Japan Chinese Culture and Arts Center, "Well-Paid Job to Jail " by Xingyue Art Group from Yuetan Street Xicheng District and "Scam Prevention" by CITIC Bank Beijing Branch won the third prize. The Foreign Affairs Office of Xicheng District won the Special Contribution Award for actively organizing the teams and closely working on the activities related to the competition.

First Prize

Second Prize

Third Prize

According to the participants, the Consular Protection Sitcom Competition not only provided a stage for everyone to express themselves, but also worked as a platform for exchanging consular protection knowledge. During the training session of the competition, experts of consular protection and artist gave detailed guidance to the play and the participants benefited a lot from the training.

Many audiences who were moved to tears said that the plays were wonderful, and the stories were touching. Having watched the performance, they gained more knowledge and understanding of consular protection, raised safety awareness while traveling overseas and make sufficient preparations before travel. They also had a stronger sense of national pride and felt more confident that no matter where they go, the strong motherland is always backing them up.

Combining online and offline formats, the competition was broadcasted live via video and picture, with live video broadcast on many media platforms including News CCTV, Xinhua News Agency Live Cloud, Weibo Live and Cloud Live. At press time, the cumulative views have exceeded 7.5 million.