The award ceremony for the sixth season of the "My Favorite Shanghai: Reasons to Love Shanghai" youth foreign language short video competition concluded successfully at the Fuxing Island Shipyard Park in Shanghai. More than 600 guests from all walks of life gathered at the event to witness the birth of a group of outstanding Chinese and foreign youth "city ambassadors".
Among them, Chen Jiyu, son of actor Chen Long, not only won the "Best City Ambassador of the Year" award for his short English video focusing on Shanghai's braised food, but was also successfully selected as one of the second batch of "International Communication Youth Promotion Ambassadors", unlocking new ways of urban cultural communication from a youth's perspective.
Event site
As an important part of the "Global Generation Z Popular Culture Exchange Program," this season's youth foreign language short video competition, themed "I am a City Ambassador," solicited short video works from young people aged 6-17 worldwide, encouraging them to tell the story of "Vibrant Shanghai, Lovely China" from three perspectives: city activities, traditional culture, and Chinese cuisine. The competition received nearly 2,000 submissions, and over 400 outstanding works selected by an international judging panel are being continuously broadcast globally through the organizer's multimedia matrix.
The awards ceremony was brimming with youthful energy, co-hosted by the first batch of ambassadors Jasper Chan (Hong Kong, China), Gu Tongyu, and Maya Wagener (Germany). Children from Kashgar and Karamay in Xinjiang took to the stage to ask and answer questions, inviting friends from Shanghai to explore Xinjiang. The event presented 10 special awards, including the Most Popular Work Award, Best Foreign Language Performance Award, Most Promising Video Blogger Award, Best City Ambassador of the Year, City Observation, Best Work in the "Explore Shanghai" and "My Favorite City" categories, as well as a Best Organization Award. The Shanghai-Xinjiang Media Convergence Project, "Xinjiang, Please Answer," won the Jury's Special Award.
Looking back on 2025, "Reasons to Love Shanghai" has embarked on a journey filled with warmth and resonance: the "Shanghai Gifts" designed by children entered the United Nations, bringing surprises from Shanghai to the world with their small creative ideas; the "Xinjiang Please Answer" series built a bridge for exchanges between young people in Shanghai and Xinjiang through VLOGs, receiving enthusiastic responses from netizens at home and abroad; from "My Favorite Shanghai" to "My Favorite City", the event attracted the global new generation to record, share and engage in dialogue; and those works that focused on the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, urban life and consumer experience naturally became youthful footnotes to promoting Shanghai and stimulating urban vitality.
Event site
It is understood that this year's international judging panel has been further expanded, bringing together international students, foreign teachers, media professionals and KOLs from more than 20 countries, and for the first time introducing "partner judges" from London, Berlin, and Reykjavik, Iceland, making the judging perspective more globally representative.
"Partner Judges"
"This is my first time participating in 'Reasons to Love Shanghai,' and I wanted to recommend Shanghai's fermented meat dishes, like drunken crab and fermented edamame—these are the taste of summer." Chen Jiyu, a first-time participant, focused his lens on traditional delicacies indispensable to Shanghainese summer tables. In his recommendation video, he eloquently explained in English: "Fermented meat is an essential part of summer for Shanghainese; almost every household knows how to make it." Without a complicated script or deliberate embellishment, his pure passion and authentic expression made this down-to-earth video stand out among numerous entries and garner unanimous praise from the international judging panel.
Chen Jiyu, a first-time participant
Chen Long, the father, was full of approval and pride for his son's performance: "He introduced Shanghai cuisine in English, which was particularly good, revealing the purity of a child. The camera must be focused on points of interest to convey the most authentic feelings and to stand out from the crowd." This unadorned sincerity perfectly matched the event's original intention of encouraging young people to express themselves freely, and also allowed Shanghai's traditional food culture to transcend language barriers and reach the world through the international expression of Generation Z.
The second batch of "Youth Ambassadors for International Communication" was announced at the event. Lei Xinyi (champion of the first season of "Reasons to Love Shanghai"), Jin Yicheng, Gu Cimo, Chen Jiyu, and Leon Alexander Sebastiansson (Iceland) were selected. The first batch of ambassadors presented them with badges, and all ambassadors jointly received their appointment certificates for the new year, symbolizing the passing down and growing strength of the "Reasons to Love Shanghai" communication team. Shanghai Yan'an Junior High School and Shanghai Changning District Tianshan No. 1 Primary School were selected as "Youth International Communication Practice Bases".
In the future, "Reasons to Love Shanghai" will continue to work with all parties to cultivate and support more young people with "international expressiveness" to take center stage in communication and jointly shape Shanghai's open, vibrant, and imaginative global image.
This event was jointly produced by the Shanghai Municipal Cyberspace Administration, the Shanghai Municipal Government Information Office, the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, and Shanghai Media Group, hosted by the Shanghai Media Group International Communication Center, co-planned by the Shanghai Municipal Local History Office, and co-presented by the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, with special support from the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
