Chinese Ambassador Chang Hua attends the opening ceremony. [Photo/Xinhua]

A Chinese Cultural Zone was opened at the Hamdan Bin Zayed School in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates on Dec 9. The zone was donated by the Chinese Embassy in the UAE.

Chinese ambassador Chang Hua, who officiated at the opening ceremony, said cooperation in education between the two nations keeps deepening, with an increase of Chinese students going to study in the UAE. The UAE provides donations to China for the establishment of the UAE Arabic Teaching and Arabic Islamic Research Center in Beijing Foreign Studies University. China has also established two Confucius Institutes in the UAE University.

The UAE students and overseas Chinese in the UAE played Guzheng (a Chinese 21- or 25-string plucked instrument) and read poems.

Hamdan Bin Zayed School was established in 2006, the only public elementary school in the Middle East that uses Chinese to teach. The Chinese embassy donated some Chinese musical instruments, clothes, bilingual books and atlases to the school at the ceremony.