On the morning of August 25, applause, laughter, and cheers filled Classroom D100 in the West Teaching Building. Organized by the International College of Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), the paperless icebreaker event for the 2026 incoming international students officially kicked off. More than 200 new undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students from around the world quickly grew closer through a series of lively and engaging interactive activities.
The first activity, “Global Wave Check-in,” invited new students from different countries and regions to break the ice through standing and waving, fun interactive questions and answers, and 30-second partner introductions. The following “Five-Finger Challenge” required no paper or pen. Using only one hand to keep count, students completed five cross-cultural interaction tasks, including finding group members, learning greetings in different languages, and sharing their expectations for campus life and exploring Xi’an. The “Silent Charades” activity that followed put the students’ teamwork and mutual understanding to the test. Representatives from each group acted out scenes from campus life using body language, while their teammates raced against the clock to guess the words. The lively and humorous performances earned rounds of applause, and the barriers of language and culture gradually faded away amid laughter and cheers. As the icebreaker activities came to a successful close, unfamiliar faces had already become new friends.
When the final round of applause rang out, those once-unfamiliar faces had become warm and familiar. This encounter, in which silence spoke louder than words, marked not only the beginning of new friendships, but also a warm opening chapter in the students’ journey of becoming part of NPU and discovering China. The event provided the 2026 international students with a platform to express themselves and learn from one another across cultures, while also laying a warm and solid foundation of peer support for their study and life at NPU.
(Copywriter: Ren Yunxi; Editor: Gao Xiaoqian; Initial Reviewer: Mei Rundong; Second Reviewer: Zhang Xi; Final Reviewer: Li Ziwei; Translators: Li Yiwen, Mei Leyun)
