ZHOU WANYI, born in 1999, is Guangdong Province’s only member in the national floral design team. She will participate on behalf of Guangdong to compete with nine other national contestants to win a ticket to the 46th World Skills Competition this year, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The 22-year-old woman from Shenzhen majored in landscape architecture design at Shenzhen Polytechnic. When she enrolled in 2017, the college was selecting candidates for the world skills contest. Zhou and her friend submitted their applications together.

“To be honest, I am not a talented competitor,” Zhou said. “With respect to basic floral arrangement skills, such as weaving, twining, and bundling, my works were always commented as ‘just so-so.’” Her friend was selected, but she didn’t get the ticket to the school team preparing for the world contest.

Xie Lijuan, teacher of the school’s team, appreciated Zhou’s persistence and diligence. “Although we didn’t pick her, she insisted on auditing the class. I am glad to help her.” Following Xie, Zhou visited many flower shows and worked with some teachers as an assistant. Her passions and efforts have touched Xie, and she finally joined the school team.

At the beginning, she had difficulties in completing works demanding lots of force, ranging from chopping wood to making frames. “It seems like men are more suitable for flower design. I used to take around one minute to cut down a piece of bamboo,” she said. “The story is totally different now. I am able to make it within 20 seconds,” she added.

Zhou has created over 2,000 works and has learned more than 500 plants’ colors, sizes and shapes by now.

Among the qualified candidates for a college competition, Zhou won the first prize and participated in a municipal contest later on. Following these two, she ranked third in a national-level competition, joining the national flower design team.

During the training in the past four months, Zhou practiced from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every day and had to create at least three artworks in 15 hours. Under her teacher’s guidance, Zhou polished all designs for more than 10 times. She will soon compete with nine contestants from other provinces to win a ticket to the world skills competition.

Zhou’s performance reflect Shenzhen’s efforts in establishing a world-class benchmark on vocational education laid out in a document jointly released by the State Education Bureau and Guangdong Provincial Government in 2020.

(Xia Yuanjie)